KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 21 — By consensus, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has failed miserably and squandered Barisan Nasional's historic 2004 mandate because he became a prisoner to Umno. His successor is trying hard to cut free from the party.
Datuk Seri Najib Razak is barely warming his seat as Umno president and prime minister for six months but is already facing the push back from the party warlords even sooner than Abdullah.
Abdullah, or Pak Lah as he was known to all, is on record as the shortest-serving prime minister but served a while longer as Umno president than founding president Datuk Onn Jaafar. The reasons for most Umno presidents leaving office can be eerily similar.
Some say that his fear of what his party felt set in after the 2004 party assembly when he realised that he could not stop the practice of money politics. Others say it was a year into his office when Abdullah succumbed to the wishes of the warlords.
Najib has not had the pleasure of at least a year to run his ideas or stamp his authority on the nationalist Malay party that has won every election since before independence in 1957. His 1 Malaysia remains a slogan, the economy sputtering despite two stimulus packages and the Cabinet is distracted by fractious fights within coalition partners.
The troubles within his ruling Barisan Nasional coalition prompted him to appeal for unity in his first Hari Raya Aidil Fitri message as prime minister yesterday as he sought to regain the initiative to keep the ship together in troubled waters.
His efforts have been in vain.
April 3 file photo of Abdullah waving as he leaves his office while new Prime Minister Najib watches with his wife Rosmah Mansor in Putrajaya. — Reuters pic
Even MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu, who is facing calls from Umno to step down after a record 11 terms at the helm, has praised Najib in the face of scorn from Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who recently ticked off the veteran leader as a liability for Barisan Nasional.
But those platitudes have not made Najib's job any easier, especially as the son of the country's second prime minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein has been a cautious and risk-averse politician since succeeding his father, who died in 1976, in the Pekan parliamentary seat. His only political setback was in 1999 when he won the seat with a 241-vote majority.
Since then, he has grown from strength to strength and took over as prime minister last April 3, promising the end to big government, reforms in the economy and furthering Bangsa Malaysia through his 1 Malaysia concept.
And while he knows that selling equity in government-linked-companies (GLCs) like Sime Darby to foreign investors is the prudent thing to do, Najib is worried about upsetting the Umno ground, calling the deal a speculation and pre-empting a decision when it was reported by The Malaysian Insider.
Similarly, privately he is upset with the action of party members involved in the cow-head demo and has told Cabinet members of the perception that Umno is becoming right wing. But he appears unwilling to haul up the right wingers and recalibrate party to the centre.
Just like Pak Lah, Najib seems content to deliver inclusive sounding speeches on the national stage but is wary of hitting too hard at the party base.
But without a doubt the warlords are fighting back. They don't think much of 1 Malaysia, were upset that Datuk Idris Jala was appointed to the Cabinet and showed their true colours at the recent by-election in Permatang Pasir.
Several Penang warlords sent word that their support can only be guaranteed if they were put back on the gravy train of contracts. The choice of candidate was also dictated by warlords despite his disbarment being an issue in the Permatang Pasir vote.
The Bagan Pinang vote on Oct 11 will be a key test of Najib's success to turn the party to do his bidding. He might get them to accept a bigger base to vote in party officials but finding the best candidate for elections seems to remain at the hands of the warlords.
If they continue to hold the party to ransom, Najib could go the way of Pak Lah — both men trying to save a party from itself but remaining a prisoner to its desires. But Najib must not fail or Umno and its allies will, in the next general election.
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