Three latest news have reinforced the question: Will there be an UMNO implosion?
First was the call by the National Patriots Association President Brig-Gen (R) Mohamed Arshad Raji asking the Negri Sembilan Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamad Hassan to apologise over his speech in Rembau inciting youths to “take physical action” against those who allegedly slander the government.
Arshad said that if politicians continue to make inflammatory speeches, then the next election will not be free of violence.
He said that regardless of whether there is a police report made against Hassan, the association urges the police to investigate the speech and to take whatever action permissible within the law.
Hassan in the video which had gone viral had said: “If there is a coffee shop disseminating slanderous statements against the government, you storm the coffeeshop, overturn their tables. If you’re picked up by the police, I will bail you out.”
Arshad said the video showed how uncultured and uncivilised Hassan could be, of wanting to remain in power, not by peaceful, democratically acceptable means but by inciting and propagating violence against those who criticised the government.
He said:” “His conduct is unbecoming of a politician and a state leader.
“Such gangster-like conduct is totally wrong and unacceptable in our Malaysian culture.”
I believe that Arshad spoke not only for the retired police and military servicemen who are members of the National Patriots Association but even for the silent 2.6 million UMNO members who want peace, law and order, progress and prosperity for all Malaysians.
This brings me to the second development, the lamentation by UMNO Veterans of “kurang ajar” politics on the rise in UMNO.
Former UMNO/BN Minister, and currently special adviser to the government on cultural matters Tan Sri Rais Yatim warned that such “kurang ajar” politics would hurt UMNO, and regretted that such leaders were not reprimanded by the party.
As example, he cited the carrying a coffin to the Selangor state secretariat building, which was not based on Islam and Malay culture.
The Negri Sembilan Mentri Besar provides the latest example of such “kurang ajar” politics, testament that UMNO leaders and members have forgotten Malaysia’s founding principles, especially Rukunegara principles enunciated during Tun Razak’s premiership.
The third event is an article in The Malaysian Insight quoting UMNO veterans warning Kedah UMNO politicians to stop belittling Tun Mahathir Mohamad or UMNO might lose Kedah.
This is because Mahathir is still highly respected in the northern state and many within Umno are secretly supporting him.
Is UMNO heading towards an implosion, when the UMNO President and leadership are not prepared to heed the cries from the heart of UMNO members and veterans like Rais and former UMNO Minister and Wanita UMNO chief Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz?
There is great rumbling in the deep bowels of UMNO and Malay society that things are not right with Malaysia, especially with regard to the great shame that the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal has brought to Malaysia by giving the nation a virtual instant epithet of a global kleptocracy.
These rumblings first surfaced publicly early this month after the seizure of 1MDB mastermind Jho Low’s billion-ringgit luxury superyacht Equanimity by the Indonesian authorities and FBI in Bali at the end last month.
Rafidah broke the ice when she publicly lamented in her FaceBook about the Malaysian government becoming the modern-day Malaysian “Emperor with New Clothes”, asking why the Malaysian authorities had not been able to find 1MDB mastermind Jho Low’s billion-ringgit luxury superyacht when she herself could spot it while on a diving trip in Thailand.
This was followed by the tweet by Rais asking why the Minister for Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak was so hasty in defending Jho Low instead of defending justice with regard to the seizure of the luxury superyacht Equanimity.
UMNO Veterans Club secretary Mustaha Yaakub joined in the public rumbling, declaring that the supporters of Jho Low as those who betrayed the country and UMNO, as Jho Low was responsible for the 1MDB scandal and that action should be taken against him.
The public rumbling and cries from the heart from the deep bowels of UMNO and Malay society elicited not sympathy and concern from those in power in UMNO and Barisan Nasional, but led to a spate of savage and malicious attacks (reminiscent of the recent attacks on Malaysian tycoon Robert Kuok) by UMNO/BN propagandists and quinoa cybetroopers.
But this has not cowed either Rais or Rafidah who stuck to their guns in their criticism of UMNO Ministers and leaders for becoming apologists and defenders of 1MDB scandal and the 1MDB mastermind Jho Low.
Rafidah must be commended for keeping up her fierce but truthful and heartfelt views, cautioning Malaysians not to vote for corrupt politicians, as that would be tantamount to an endorsement of their wrongdoings.
She warned Malaysians would be “accomplices” to acts of corruption and treachery if they wilfully voted for corrupt politicians.
Is UMNO heading for an implosion?
Media Conference Statement 2 in Parliament on Thursday, 22nd March 2018 at 12 noon