Post GE13 political scenarios-Part 4

I am surprised to see comments asking where do we put Najib and Muhyidin in this entire wild speculative and kite flying article. If people find this article purely speculative and just a load of rubbish, then UMNO has nothing to worry about. No need to go into sixes and sevens. (by the way- that is an expression of being in a state of disorientation and confusion that neatly describes the recent UMNO GA).

Where do you place Najib and Muhyidin? This article is founded on a belief that UMNO and BN are out in the GE13. Najib will be the opposition leader and Muhyidin will be there too. So what to talk about Najib and Muhyidin? 

We are all entitled to our own political beliefs. Some call it potatoes, others call it pertatoes, portartoes etc.

There is no present or past tense in politics. There’s only relevance. Is Razaleigh relevant? In my mind, given the manic and xenophobic stage of our politics, we urgently need political sanity. How do we achieve that? Through a leadership committed to the rule of law, fair play and inclusiveness, democratic and liberal principles. That leadership I believe can be provided by a person of the stature and standing, experience and man of substance like Tengku Razaleigh.

Relevance comes with the commitment to immutable principles- a sense of fair play, rule of law, good governance, and jealous observation to democratic principles. It’s funny to see judgmental stand on this- Razaleigh is old, yet Mahathir who is in his 80s is waiting in the wings. Because some people think he is relevant. I am old, but Najib and Muhyidin who are older, aren’t classified as old. Hence old, young, or whatever is just management of subjective and very personal numerical perception. It depends on how you want to angle it; hence the managed perception has no universal application. It’s subjective.

A frequent objection to Tengku Razaleigh has been this concerted effort to link him with the infamous BMF affair. As finance Minister at that point in time, he has no involvement at all with the BMF scandal. BBMB was answerable to the PM’s office at the time and the person principally responsible over BBMB affairs was Dr Mahathir. Tengku Razaleigh won many defamation cases against international newspapers which attempted to link him with the BMF affair. Local politics at that time, controlled by Dr Mahathir of course, directed local mainstream newspapers to carry but scant reports about Razaleigh successfully clearing his name from any involvement in the BMF affair.

The urgent matter at hand is for the big 3 in the opposition to sit down and talk about rational seat allocations. The PR parties must sit down and establish the ground rules first. The first I think is to allocate seats. I am more interested in seeing the allocation of parliamentary seats. The starting point should be, each of the big tree is given the same number of seats. There are 222 seats so each party gets 74 seats. That should be the starting point. After that, all sit down to renegotiate and rescale the numbers. DAP and PAS may not have the number so then PKR can get the numbers. If PKR recognizes that it must move beyond inducting camera wielding novices, then it must also adjust its expectations. Between them they must agree on the number of seats. Each party must recognize its limitations. No party should be fielding a candidate where one of the partners has been given a seat. Ideally it should be a 1 to 1 fight with the ‘winnable’ BN candidate.

How does Tengku Razaleigh fit into the scheme of things? At this moment we can only assume Razaleigh commands allegiance from people within UMNO itself. Some of these may not be fielded in the coming elections by UMNO but I would certainly think, they will contest and some of them will go on to win. We must assume there is a number; otherwise the PR parties would not be interested in Tengku Razaleigh. As outsiders, we don’t know the real extent of Razaleigh’s support. The players would know better. Because the PR people are interested in Razaleigh, that in itself suggests that they believe he has support. Again, if this assumption is not tenable, UMNO can dismiss it.  But from the way pro UMNO blogs have started to cast aspersions on Razaleigh, they know he is a significant.

But what if Razaleigh not only has influence within UMNO but also outside UMNO? How does it come to that? That will be in another segment.