UMNO is really in a state of confusion/implosion.

PM Abdullah’s MACC does the trick. It is trite that money politics is corruption, whether by MACC or any other anti-corruption legislation anywhere in the world. It is not a special species of corruption within purview only of the political party’ disciplinary board, as Board chairman Tan Sri Tengku Rithauddeen will have it, and which enjoys special immunity from the reach of the anti-corruption law! To assert otherwise on a flimsy excuse that the Discciplinary Board is not a “forwarding agency” for the MACC makes a mockery of the anti corruption stance that Abdullah’s administration wants to take credit for.

Yet it is also true that money politics has seeped so much into political culture of the ruling political party that it has become the “glue” that holds the whole fabric of the party together. This means if the MACC dissolves that glue, the party in its present form/practices, will unravel. One does not even need Anwar’s canvassing of political defections to do the trick!

It has only now dawned amongst rank and file this revelation. No wonder party grassroots are incensed. The MalaysianInsider reported on 30th Jan of a demonstration by some 30 Youth and Putera members with placards “Return the rights of Umno Members! Do not stifle Umno members’ Freedom of Speech! Abolish the MACC”, calling for both the abolition of the MACC and the resignation of disciplinary board chairman Rithauddeen. “One member of the group even accused Abdullah of being cowardly and spineless when he shouted “Pak Lah bacul!” The group also handed a memorandum to the party leadership protesting the MACC’s involvement in their internal party affairs.

It is a little too late isn’t it for regrets after an attempt, in wake of 308 electoral debacle, to put up a façade of being anti corruption with the MACC to impress detractors otherwise?

Look at the various options: Given that money politics is corruption within MACC purview as admitted by the MACC Chief Commissioner, the MACC Chief Commissioner will have to call for the 900 complaints of Umno money politics from Rithauddeen.

If the MACC Chief Commissioner defers to the PM’s opinion that issue of money politics “fell under the disciplinary committee’s jurisdiction” then it will give immediate credence to earlier claims of civil society, opposition and other stakeholders that the MACC is not an independent body from the PM.

If the MACC Chief Commissioner claims it is independent and yet desists from calling for the 900 complaints of Umno money politics from Rithauddeen, then he will have to admit that he is derelicting in his duties under MACC Act, even at the incipient time of MACC establishment.

So the MACC Chief Commissioner will have to call for these files, and if he does so, Rithauddeen will have to supply the information or otherwise held to have committed an offence in contravention of sections 47 and 48 of the MACC!

However if Rithauddeen were to supply the information to MACC, he would open the pandora box for all UMNO rank and file belonging to different factions vying for various positions to lodge corruption reports against one other, throwing the entire party into disarray and confusion.

If the party bigwigs backtrack on the MACC and try to keep lid on money politics and sweep it under the carpet, their popularity with the electorate, already dented severely as evinced by 308 GE & PP 929 and KT 117 by-elections will nose-dive presenting a prospect of being routed in the next GE which Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak would want to hold as soon as possible to endorse his own premeirship.

From the above, it looks like the dominant party of BN is in a quandary running out of viable options, short of devising an excuse to launch another Operation Lallang, which by itself is also not that vaible in light of existing conditions much changed from the last massive crackdown.

To compound the problem it does not have credible leader who has evinced a strategic capability, intellect and vision combined with strength and force of personality, who at the same time could galvanise all round popular support transcending factionalism, to tackle its problems and resolve these intractable dilemmas.

Susah lah ini macam! :)

“Jeffrey deals too much in hypotheticals. The reader is in constant danger of tying himself or herself up in knots – and having his head stuck up in his own ass, if he is not careful. Godfather has learned this from his own experience!” – Undergrad2 (Today at 05: 53.00 (9 hours ago)

Godfather learning from his own experience of tying himself in knots and having his head stuck up in his own ass, if he is not careful, Undergrad2?

Thanks for the enlightening revelation.

Now I understand why if Godfather is tunneled vision, prone to judgmental dogmatism.

If he looks at issues along a single axis and is quite incapable of evaluating them along lines “on the one hand it is this, and on the other hand it is that” that he complains of me, it must be recollected in his defence that, in his unenviable situation, there is only one direction along that tunnel for his thought process to go – and even then, it would be quite impossible to see that far and wide up that tunnel or, alternatively (here’s the dilemma), get his swollen head out of it! LOL :)