UMNO MUST CHANGE! That is my blog for today. UMNO must change to make herself relevant. To me sincerely it is a dinosaur and it does not evolve soon than I am afraid they is no hope for the party. I have to add I am not a member of UMNO but I am a lover of my Malay race. To me if UMNO is gone than the party that protect the Malays is gone. Some people may add we have the Malay Rulers but since the constitutional crisis 1988 their wings have been clip. Now they are beholden to the executive. I am sad at this turn of event but the sign were already there. I maintain the fault does not lies with the President,changing the leader is not the problem it just that the image of UMNO has been severely beaten especially after March 8.

I've met the producer of the documentary 10 tahun sebelum merdeka which was highly praise. He was a young energetic leftist. The story was about the Hartal which occur before independence, he talk about the PUTERA-AMCJA council as though he was an expert on history, sadly what he says is true but skewered. I won't go in detail of the Joint Coucil but please go here to find out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Malaya_Council_of_Joint_Action

That is the reason when you hide history and skewered them, when the youth ( from the help of the web) find out the 'truth' to them it is a holy grail. You need to talk them point blank and explain the fallacy of the coalition, of which I am aware off. Granted UMNO was founded by Malay elite which after being coddle by the British found out after the war their privilege was taken away, true the Sultan of Johore who supported was incense that his power as an independent ruler was curtail yet this was the party that unite the Malays. True before the war PKMM was the first Malay National party founded but generally it did not attrct the elite and the royals to participate. It cause a buzz with the rural people but that is far as it goes. It was Malayan Unoin and 1946 that UMNO manage to unite them although many join because of selfish reason but join they did. Now UMNO has lost her relevance to the masses. It is sad.

Not because the ideals she espoused but what she has become. The leaders are look upon as corrupted by the Malays. They are loath by the young Malays to them UMNO means corrupt and evil. What ever that comes from the leaders mouth is regarded as lies and yet it does continue to lie. Leaders are fighting among themselves and if this is not curtail soon it will be the bane of UMNO. Again I said changing the leader is not the solution granted he is weak but UMNO need an overhaul, leaders which are contempt need to be sack or put in cold storage, Branch Division Chief must hold swayy to the party not the party to him as it is now. So action againts them could be met out judiciously.

Below are two news which provide a earful to the idea of revamp and image which has gone wrong in UMNO, one was written by Marina Mahathir the other one by a reporter. I hope my readers would then conccur with me.

Let Us Not be Fooled....

In case any of you didn't see this yesterday:

PAS MP Lodges Report Against Khir Toyo

By: Maria J.Dass (Thu, 11 Sep 2008)


SHAH ALAM (Sept 11, 2008): Kota Raja Member of Parliament Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud has lodged a police report against former Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Khir Toyo and website pembelamelayu.com for spreading malicious slander and lies about certain quarters pressuring the state authorities to tone down the call to prayer at mosque and surau in the state.

When contacted, Siti Mariah, who is also PAS central committee member, said the police must investigate and act on this immediately as malicious lies can ruin racial and religious harmony.

Pembelamelayu.com quoting Mohd Khir in his blog said Seputeh MP and Puchong Assemblyman Theresa Kok had supported a petition by the Chinese in Kinrara against the azan (call to morning prayer) in their area.

The website also alleged that Seri Serdang assemblyman Satim Diman had raised the issue at the state assembly but did not get a response.

In her report lodged at the Dang Wangi police headquarters today, Siti Mariah said Mohd Khir's statement, published in Utusan Malaysia on Tuesday, was "malicious and aimed at raising the anger and anxiety of Malay Muslims".

"This action by Khir, the blog and Utusan Malaysia is an obvious attempt to manipulate the sentiments of the Malay and Muslim people," Siti Mariah said.

She said newspapers should verify the facts before publishing such reports.
(The Utusan Malaysia report quoted Khir, but Kok's name was not mentioned.)

"As a Muslim, I was upset when I read the article, but upon checking with Teresa, I found out that she had not been involved in the petition at all."

She added that she obtained a copy of the state assembly Hansard from the Speaker's office and found that allegations that Satim was ordered to remain seated when he brought up the issue at the state assembly was unfounded.

She said it is understood that committees of the mosques involved have also lodged reports with the police against the unfounded allegations.

When contacted, Mohd Khir said: "Let the police to investigate the allegations."

Asked if he stood by the statements made, Mohd Khir said: "A report has been lodged, so I don't want to say anything more on the matter."

On Wednesday, Kok, referring to the article published on PembelaMelayu.com, denied even receiving such a complaint from residents and said she personally had no problems with the prayer calls.

Kok had also demanded a retraction and apology from Mohd Khir, Utusan Malaysia, its writer Zaini Hassan and Satim.

Taken from Marina mahathir blog.

A question of insecurity

COMMENTARY SEPT 13 - Ops Lalang in 1987 ended Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's flirtation with openness and in eerily similar circumstance, polemics of race relations have culminated in a fresh round of Internal Security Act (ISA) arrests yesterday under the watch of handpicked successor Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Abdullah took office and, with a 91 percent majority in 2004, promised transparency and rule of law, but the dismal results of the March 8 elections has made his leadership unstable and untenable as Umno politicians carp at his indecisiveness and Dr Mahathir himself has thrown everything but the kitchen sink to oust the prime minister. Therefore, the latest ISA arrests appear to be a repeat of Dr Mahathir's act of putting away 106 politicians and activists and shutting down newspapers when leadership is threatened and power appears to be slipping away.

In Dr Mahathir's case, it was the party clash with Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and tense race ties between Malays and Chinese over vernacular education set off by then Education Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's decision to appoint non-Chinese educated administrators in Chinese schools. In Abdullah's case, an unhappy Umno and Malay ground together with equally unhappy non-Malays coupled with the looming Sept 16 deadline by Anwar to topple Abdullah's government has pushed the prime minister to draw the line and take action. That action has led to DAP leader Teresa Kok, journalist Tan Hoon Cheng and prominent blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin, being detained up to 60 days for investigations under the ISA while three newspapers have been issued show-cause notices for their reporting. Ironically, one of the three newspapers - Sin Chew Daily - was closed down in the 1987 Ops Lalang. The government has given security grounds and threats to public order for the arrest of Raja Petra, a harsh government critic who already faces a few criminal and civil court dates for his articles in the Malaysia Today news portal. As for Kok, newspapers report it could be related to allegations that she asked mosques in her state constituency to reduce the volume of prayer calls while Tan is being held for her report on Umno Penang warlord Datuk Ahmad Ismail's racist rant that saw him punished with a three-year suspension from party office. Then and now, those arrested have been far removed from those who stoke the racial tensions and endanger the security and public order of the nation. Then and now, messengers get shot but not the perpetrators. Then and now, is it the security of the nation or the insecurity of the ruling politicians that has led to these arrests? The lonely world of Umno KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 13 - The crisis that Malaysia"s United Malays National Organisation (Umno) is now in has two correlated sources. First, its hold on power has always depended on it being at the head of a coalition. Second, it has always been a party given to internal strife. The party was after all formed defensively in 1946 by a broad spectrum of Malay leaders bent on quashing British post-war plans to simplify the governance of its peninsular colonies. The Malays feared that the British were playing them out and that they were in danger of being permanently disadvantaged vis-�-vis non-Malay colonial subjects. It was only after its second president, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, took over in 1951 that Umno became a party that was on the offensive. It adopted a positive goal full independence for Malaya. However, it was not a strong party in itself. Although the Tunku worked the ground very thoroughly in the beginning and read the situation correctly, it would take him a while to whip up support for the new direction along which he would take the party. What proved a decisive moment and one in which he was not involved was when an electoral coalition was worked out in February 1952 between the Selangor branch of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) and Umno"s Kuala Lumpur Division. This experiment proved highly successful in ensuing local elections, catching many, including the Tunku, by surprise. One whole year would pass before a national network of Umno-MCA liaison committees was finally set up. This took place on March 16, 1953, and with that, the Alliance was established. The Malayan Indian Congress (MIC) would join in April 1954 to make the picture perfect. What this short history reveals is that it is coalitions that rule Malaysia, not parties. And for that to be possible, each race-based party in the coalition must enjoy the trust of its community. Umno"s strength has always been directly tied to the support and strength of its non-Malay allies. Conversely, its crises are also tied to their crises. Umno could never, and can never, rule alone, or even act as if it did or does. When the MCA lost Chinese support in 1969, the Alliance went into crisis. Now, when the MIC is abandoned by Indian voters and the Parti Gerakan Rakyat by Chinese voters, the Barisan Nasional (BN) suffers the same fate. So, how could so hegemonic a system as the BN end up in such a predicament? To get the answer, one needs to understand the balance that Umno, the dominant party, has to maintain between the support it can enjoy from its allies and the strength that these allies must retain in order to survive. The two are symbiotically connected. Since the strength of a race-based party depends on it being seen by its community to be standing up for its collective interests, a coalition of race-based parties must play an intricate game where the strong limits itself so that the weak are not neutered. Everyone must be seen to be strong. This seemed too tall an order for a party as strong as Umno to keep. It saw itself grow from strength to strength over the years, and saw how its allies grew more and more compliant. It was easy for Umno"s leaders and members to forget how necessary the aforementioned tactical balance was to the well being of the BN. The leader of its Youth wing began waving an unsheathed keris at the party"s general assemblies, and even the president of the party, and Prime Minister of the country at that, received the gift of the National Flag taken up into space by the first Malaysian sent there, as head of the party, and not as head of the country. Double standards favouring Umno members became a common occurrence, and a blind eye was turned only when it suited party members. What such acts by Umno and its members accomplished was to show the general public that the mutual aid principle that the BN relied upon was dead. Once this became clear to voters, the rational choice open to them was to abandon the coalition. This was made easier by the fact that the opposition parties managed to provide what appeared a viable alternative. Umno"s hubris grew from it forgetting that it stood on the shoulders of the BN, and that it had never been, and can never be, powerful enough to rule by itself. Through prolonged lack of training, it lost the strategic skills that the system depended upon. The negotiating attitude that race-based parties need, not as a matter of good manners but as a matter of good tactic, in order to function as a coalition was forgotten. But as so many porcelain shops teach us, -once broken, considered sold-. Once hubris has set in, there is no turning back. Najib's predicament Kuala Lumpur, Sept 13 Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is in a dilemma. If he does not break with the two-year transition plan and move to oust Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, he risks having his dirty linen hung out in public by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Sources told the Malaysian Insider that the ultimatum was given to Najib by the former prime minister at a recent meeting.' In Perlis yesterday, Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir said his father had told Najib to "go against Abdullah or expect to be finished off". Najib has reason to be concerned. He served under Dr Mahathir for more than two decades and the latter was privy to all his secrets. The DPM has supported Abdullah's plan to hand over power to him in mid 2010, saying that it was in the party tradition to have an orderly transition. He has also resisted many attempts by Dr Mahathir, since the Election 2008 debacle, to force Abdullah out of office before the party elections in December. But yesterday, Najib seemed to be wavering. Asked about Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin's call for the PM to leave office before December, he said party delegates should decide on the transition plan. Umno divisions will have their meetings and elections in October when they will also nominate candidates for senior positions in the party, including the president and deputy president's posts. Najib's statement yesterday is being interpreted by some as a sign that he will be prepared to accept nominations for the top position in Umno. The power broker of Penang PENANG, Sept 13 The political life of Mr Ahmad Ismail the man who has refused to say sorry reads like a primer on the system of patronage by which Umno has, for decades, maintained order in the party. From being a little-known albeit powerful state political leader, the Umno division chief of the Bukit Bendera constituency in Penang has now been catapulted onto the national stage for all the wrong reasons. To the Chinese, Mr Ahmad is a racist and a bigot accusations that he denies strongly although he has admitted to describing the Chinese as -squatters- and -immigrants- while on the stump during the Permatang Pauh by-election last month. Mr Ahmad, 53, insisted days after the remark was reported that he was quoted out of context, claiming that he was talking to a Malay crowd about the Chinese in a historical context. On Wednesday, Mr Ahmad was suspended for three years from Umno, which had been under pressure by its Chinese partners in the Barisan Nasional coalition to take strong action against the defiant politician. HIS PAST ANWAR LINK For Mr Ahmad one of the most powerful Umno warlords in Penang, the home state of embattled Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi this is not the first time that he has had a run-in with the party"s top leadership. Ten years ago, he was almost expelled from Umno for being an active member of Mr Anwar Ibrahim"s reformasi movement. Following Mr Anwar"s sacking from all his government and Umno posts, the former Deputy Prime Minister, until his arrest, had toured the country to whip up support for himself and against then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Constantly at Mr Anwar"s side during those tumultuous days was Mr Ahmad. Despite his public display of support for a fallen politician, Mr Ahmad was, in the end, spared of any punishment as he chose not to leave Umno to join Mr Anwar"s newly-formed party. Mr Ahmad remained useful to the Umno"s senior leadership as a local warlord. It could be said that Mr Ahmad had reason to be loyal to Mr Anwar, a fellow Penangnite. When Mr Anwar was Finance Minister, he had approved the privatisation of a government project to build an outer ring road in Penang to a company controlled by Mr Ahmad, who comes from a family of contractors. The project was recently put off by the federal government. Their close ties earned Mr Ahmad a place in the list of -Anwar cronies- that was released during the Umno General Assembly in 1998 and 1999 by Dr Mahathir to counter criticisms from the Anwar camp that the Prime Minister had practised cronyism. The list offered a glimpse into the patronage system by which Umno operated, whereby strong and influential party members, such as Mr Ahmad, were given business contracts or projects that were reserved for bumiputras (sons of the soil) under the government"s affirmative action programme. And in Penang, Mr Ahmad was then and still is the most powerful warlord of them all. Even his business troubles in recent years appear to have done little to diminish his political standing. In May 2006, Mr Ahmad was declared bankrupt by the Insolvency Department and was removed as a councillor on the Penang Island Municipal Council. He was later reinstated to the post after obtaining a stay of execution of the bankruptcy order although he had to give it up again since he had served the maximum term of four years as councillor. Earlier this month, the Penang Development Corporation made a police report, asking for an investigation into the now-defunct Popular Profile, of which Mr Ahmad was director, for allegedly cheating the state of RM500,000 ($208,000) following a botched land transaction in 1998. The company wound up in 2005. In an interview with The Star, Mr Ahmad said the issue had nothing to do with him since he had resigned from the company before any action was taken against it. A MAN OF POWER As a sign of his importance in the Penang political pantheon, when federal ministers from Kuala Lumpur fly in for a visit, Mr Ahmad will be invited to be among the main VIP guests. So powerful is Mr Ahmad in this Chinese-majority state that he frequently gave former Chief Minister Dr Koh Tsu Koon a hard time for not doing enough to help Penang Malays. And Mr Ahmad could get away with such actions because Dr Koh, who remains the state BN chief, and other senior officials from his Gerakan party were beholden to the Umno politician for his political support. As the man who controls the Umno machinery, including party workers , in Penang, Mr Ahmad"s support can make a difference between victory and defeat for a Gerakan or any other BN candidate during an election. -The fact is that even the Prime Minister depends on our Datuk Ahmad for support,- one Penang Umno official told Weekend Xtra. Last week, when Mr Abdullah chaired a state-level Umno meeting to discuss the mounting racial tensions arising from Mr Ahmad"s remarks, many had expected him to censure the Bukit Bendera chief. Instead, the Umno president came out of the meeting telling reporters that the Penang politician was not a racist. Mr Abdullah"s defence of Mr Ahmad was not surprising given that other local division chiefs had rallied round him during the meeting. To act otherwise would put Mr Abdullah at the risk of losing the support of Umno divisions in his own home state something that he could not afford given his weakened political position following the March 8 general elections. Of course, Umno was eventually forced to suspend Mr Ahmad because of threats from Gerakan and the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) to leave the BN coalition a move which could hand power over to Mr Ahmad"s old friend, MrAnwar. Still, Mr Ahmad remains unrepentant and insists that he will not apologise a position which has turned him into something of a hero among many Umno members. Such defiance has also given a fillip to forces within the party who want Mr Abdullah to leave sooner, rather than later, as Prime Minister. At a time when Malaysia"s economic and political situation has made it difficult for the traditional patronage system to function like it used to in the past, political warlords like Mr Ahmad will continue to hold sway suspension or not. TODAY '