Thinking of UMNO-1

       this is probably how UMNO grassroots see the UMNO leadership

I fear I bring distressing news. UMNO is suffering a possible terminal illness. Things are not as good as they seem.

A few months ago, I was a facilitator and participant at a Pahang UMNO convention. It was held at the UITM campus in Jengka, Termerloh Pahang. At the opening address the Pahang MB said UMNO is like a car. All we need is do some fine tuning- change spark plug, change oil filter, here some bolts, there some nuts. No sooner had he completed his analogy, somebody from the back of the hall, near from where I sat, shouted back. It's not those, we need to change the whole CAR.

There is this gaping dichotomy between what the leader of UMNO feels and what the UMNO grassroots members feel. I fear, the UMNO leadership has the same estimation as the Pahang MB.

Our leadership feels UMNO has regained its balance. It hasn't because in order to regain balance, it must get back its soul. The soul of UMNO isn't motivated by crass materialism, isn't motivated by the overriding desire to enrich oneself. The UMNO soul is nourished by noble ideals, compassion for the rakyat and imbued with a sense of noblesse oblige. We grassroots UMNO member know the manner how our leaders solve problems. PM Najib has to go back to his constituency in Pekan, hand money over to the 140 UMNO branches to carry out the annual general meetings.

UMNO has lost the spirit of voluntarism. And voluntarism as Tocqueville observed in his Democracy in America, formed the basis of a living democracy. There isn't any in UMNIO nowadays.

In my previous post, I said, taking the example in Sibu, the BN which has essentially been UMNOised- sees the voting public as one undifferentiated mass which is buyable. Accordingly UMNO handles this mass the way it knows how to- buy buying them or using the forces of coercion.

The result from Sibu shows the voting population is a heterogeneous mass, consisting of various segments, each motivated by different urgings. Some want money and these can be bought. Others are concerned about issues such as good governance, quality leadership, justice, etc. others are marginalized group whose plight is seen as the outcome of politics by the [powers that be.

UMNO doesn't realize this just as the Pahang MB didn't realize that the problem is no longer confined to just doing some fine-tuning and tweaking here and there. The problem has become so acute that the whole car must be changed.

The saddest thing is now quite apparent. UMNO has lost all high grounds and have decided to do the only thing left in its armoury to try and win back the rakyat - bribe them using their own money. It therefore shows what it is good in. The only skill it seems to have, honed by years of practice, developed into an art and now concluded as the cause of the suffering faced by the rakyat. But what is sadder than even the saddest is that UMNO has to pretend the rakyat don't know all that. And it pretended right in front of them. – Obiwan Walla