GUESS WHAT, the biggest joke! UMNO is, in fact, a minority in this country, yet it continues to act like a tyrant and since the time of Dr Mahathir Mohamad too. What cheek!
This analysis came about after encountering a ‘funny’ yet real situation, where a Malay gentleman in his fifties and the two of us were asking the Indian news vendor at our favorite Mamak coffee shop, whether he had the latest edition of Harakah.
We all know that Harakah is the PAS official organ, with a publishing permit from the Home Ministry, but when this news vendor sheepishly pulled out two copies of the weekly paper from a hidden shelf, we asked “why do you have to hide it?”
Is Umno really that omnipotent that all of us living in this country have to bow to its wishes? So we decided to dig up some figures to see whether Umno deserved to throw its weight around as the so-called representative of the majority in Malaysia.
The big Umno lie
UMNO has been in power in this country since 1957. Its dominance in Malaysian politics has never been questioned as much as in the past 15 years, in fact, since Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim was sent to prison.
The then UMNO Baru president Dr Mahathir Mohamad was struggling to stay in power even as UMNO members were deserting him to start a reform movement that put justice and fairness as its top priorities. This movement has since evolved into a full-fledged political party called Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR).
If not for the support of the Chinese and Indian community, Dr Mahathir and his UMNO Baru would have been given the boot in 1998.
After the release of Anwar in 2004, the country's three major parties in the Opposition – PAS, PKR and DAP – got together to form a new political front that managed to garner enough support to seize control of 5 states in Peninsular Malaysia in the 2008 general election.
What was later known as the 2008 political tsunami has indeed opened the eyes of the larger populace of this country. PAS is no longer perceived as a threat to the Chinese community. Finally, the Malays realized that the Chinese-dominated DAP was not made up of either Communists or Christians.
The 2013 general election or GE13 has also been an eye-opener. Anwar's Pakatan Rakyat coalition had in fact won the popular vote, securing 52% of the total ballots cast compared to UMNO and Barisan Nasional, which only managed to scrape together 47%.
Brainwashing and fear-mongering
Yet many of the ordinary citizens are still afraid to be openly aligned to the Opposition, although that is fast changing, which is why many believe the current administration under Prime Minister Najib Razak is pushing hard to revive draconian laws so as to further scare the people into docility.
This is due to the psychological warfare which UMNO has been playing for many years. It has created a myth that they are in power because they represent the majority of the population. On the contrary, when you start analyzing further, the truth will unfold itself.
As much as the Umno-led Government would have us believe that the Bumiputra make up 68 percent of the country’s population, the truth is that Umno only has slightly over 3 million members or about 11 percent of the country’s population. This is provided that Umno's estimate of its membership is true and not padded up in the first place.
The 68 percent in our official statistics includes the Bumiputra of 3.5 million in East Malaysia, where the majority of them are Christians who would never meet the criteria to join UMNO.
The 'mamaks' or Muslim Indians such as Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Shahrizat Jalil only constitute a small percentage of the 'Malay' population.
The Malays, even if including the Banjar Malays, Minangkabau, Indonesian and the Malays in East Malaysia, are only about 15 million against a population of 27 million in 2010.
Umno Malays form 20% of the total Malay population, 11% of the Malaysian population!
At 3 million, Umno members only make up 20 percent of the Malay population. The rest are either members of other political parties, such as PAS and PKR, or they make up the silent majority who are still sitting on the fence.
It is interesting when the issue of Allah became a heated argument, UMNO was trying to speak on behalf of the Muslim population, whereas people like Anwar and even PAS Spiritual Adviser Tok Guru Nik Aziz have said that non-Muslims can use the name Allah reverently.
While campaigning for Vice President’s post, incumbent Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was outspoken. To UMNO, he was lauded as a hero, but to the rest of the population, he was an ultra-Malay, yet the question is why was Zahid prepared to lose his reputation in order to clinch the VP position? Did he in fact represent the majority of our Malay friends and neighbours?
Was Najib Abdul Razak, the prime minister, also picked by a vote of the majority or merely by some 24 UMNO Supreme Council Members?
Perhaps, this is one reason why Najib, despite all the efforts to win the people’s hearts, could get nowhere compared to Abdullah Badawi who came out with a simple slogan, “Work with me, not for me!”
Umno itself is split
UMNO has been using other races as punching bags. This is why, whenever there is an opportunity, the other communities would retaliate against UMNO. UMNO has never lived in peace with other communities.
Even within UMNO Baru, not every member is, in fact, in agreement with the present leadership. An elder pakcik once told us, “Fellas, in the past, the Malays talk about Islam more than anything else. These days, they are talking about money.”
Like another fellow Malay, he told us that the UMNO divisional leader would “kacau” (intimidate) him, if he was seen supporting Pakatan Rakyat.
Of the 3 million members, it is our belief that many joined Umno to get government contracts – in the same manner in which a former boss of ours once said, “I just signed up as a member of MCA after being pestered for so long, but at heart, I vote for DAP all my life!”
Umno warlords unafraid of minority races, relies on East M'sian power barons like Taib Mahmud
Others in UMNO have differing views and are in fact antagonistic towards Team A, which is still controlling the party since 1987 when UMNO Baru was set up by Dr Mahathir.
Like in any political party which is in power, there are also the usual factions in UMNO which are battling for the control.
Within Team A, there is the infamous faction comprising the cousins, Prime Minister Najib Razak and Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, as well as the father-and-son team of Mahathir Mohamad and Mukhriz that are seeking to be in power.
The Abdullah Badawi-Khairy Jamaluddin faction is watching and waiting for an opportunity after Badawi, being from Team B, was ousted by Dr Mahathir.
UMNO is not afraid of any ethnic community. Instead its greatest fear is for people like Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud to abandon the BN.
For this reason, despite calls by non-governmental organizations, an UMNO-led government will never go after Taib. It is not that the government does not have enough evidence; instead, it is because Taib knows that he has UMNO’s nostrils by the leash.
80/20 Rule
And since money politics has never been an issue in UMNO Baru, now knowing Najib's tenuous hold on power, UMNO grassroots can demand for more pay for work that their leaders want them to carry out.
To the grassroots, this is their ticket on the notorious Umno gravy train, especially since ill-gotten wealth snatched by some of the UMNO elite run into billions of ringgit. After all, what is a few more millions of Ringgit by comparison?
UMNO leaders know that they cannot continue to be in power the moment their delicate position is exposed. As such, they make every effort to boost their grassroots support.
Until 80 percent of the population begins to realize that it is the 20 percent “UMNO elites” that decide on their livelihood, the country will continue to slide down the scale.
The 80 percent majority are people of all races who are not in UMNO, and who would like to see this country, become what it is supposed to be – progressive and prosperous, and free from corruption.
Umno relying on extremism not the middle ground to stay in control of national coffers
The conventional wisdom is that UMNO knows in order to remain in power, it has to win over the middle ground. However, we are not seeing any real move for national reconciliation despite one of the most divisive-ever general elections held on May 5, 2013.
In fact, as Najib sought to consolidate his hold on Umno, he has turned 360 degrees from a promised centrist position back to the far right. In fact, Umno can with fairness be regarded as an extremist party. There are clear signs of adopting Nazi-style policies by using force to prolong an apartheid system of governance and wealth distribution in the country.
It is not surprising when former minister Saifuddin Abdullah admitted Umno was shifting to the right, he evoked laughter and ridicule. "To a certain extent, yes, the party has turned right. Now we really have to undo this, especially given that the Umno election is over. Some Umno leaders, after the elections, were trying to understand what was happening in GE13. For some, it was quite traumatic," ," said Saifuddin, the former deputy higher education minister.
These were the responses from two Malay leaders - former Umno law minister Zaid Ibrahim and former Perak chief minister Nizar Jamaluddin.
Sorry my friend, UMNO has not veered to the right; Umno is Extreme Right - tweeted Zaid.
What extreme right? Downright racists! That's why we witnessed and observed rampant injustices day in day out! - tweeted Nizar.
Written by Stephen Ng, Stan Lee, Malaysia Chronicle
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