Isa Samad - Local warlords more important than integrity of BN

by Nathaniel Tan

In all seriousness, I never thought they’d actually do it :P

It really means only one of two things:

a) Umno was wrong in its earlier conviction of Isa for money politics - ie, he was unjustly victimised as part of an malicious political ploy.

b) In Umno, criminals and bribery are truly loved.

Najib can’t have been oblivious to this decision, which has repercussions that extend well beyond Bagan Pinang, in terms of how BN is viewed by the general public.

Almost all urban seats (where people talk politics a lot) in 2008 fell to Pakatan, and it appears Najib has little interest in retaining them by at least making some show of keeping to the straight and narrow & maintaining some honour in the coalition.

Another good sign is that this may well mean they are getting increasingly desperate in their bid to hang on to the seat - the winability of which may be becoming precarious.

Surely there must have been pressure from the local machinery, but it looks like Najib is far more concerned with appeasing local Umno warlords than building a BN based on integrity and principle (haha, did you choke reading that? my bad :)

That BN did this even after the disbarred lawyer scandal is ever the more telling.

Nonetheless, it will be a tough fight. For a seat like this, if we lose but close to even within 500-1000 votes (let’s not forget the massive postal votes), I’d consider it a thumping victory. An actual victory ain’t outta sight either, if you ask me.

As someone joked: anti-ISA shirts will be all the rage again, aheh.