MGG Pillai Commentary View

<< Previous || Next >>

Did the UMNO supreme council 'elect without contest' Pak Lah and Dato' Seri Najib to the two top posts?

THE UMNO SUPREME COUNCIL met on Monday (24 May 2004) and decided unanimously, so we are told the next day, that the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, are elected party president and deputy president respectively. Or as the UMNO secretary general, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, put it: "The supreme council also agrees that acting president Abdullah is elected to the post of president without contest and the vice-preisdent carrying out the duties of deputy president, Najib, is elected to the post of deputy president without contest." All other posts for the supreme council will be decided in elections at the UMNO general assembly starting on 23 September. The obvious questions were not asked: How could the UMNO supreme council elect the party president and deputy president without falling foul of its own constitution and the Registrar of Societies? Why and how did it decide? Tan Sri Khalil's sepulchral announcement - as befits a man, if the widespread belief in UMNO can be believed - who would be soon the governor of Malacca, raises more questions than answers. He would not answer them. But someone must. It could not be left unexplained.

So to Dato' Seri Najib the reporters went. He had an interesting spin. The supreme council reflected on the "strong" mandate, the "big" victory, the "trust" the people gave the party leadership in the March general election and decided the two be elected without contest. Pak Lah, he stressed, did not ask for it. Besides, no UMNO division called for elections for president and deputy president. Why could not the supreme council wait, the reporters asked, until after the UMNO branches and divisions had their meetings and elections? He said since the divisions did not ask for elections for the two posts, the supreme council decided they should not be contested. Dato' Seri Najib makes several wrong assumptions. UMNO did not contest the general elections. It stood as a component party of the National Front (BN). The "strong" mandate, the "big" victory, the people's "trust" he talks so highly of was not to UMNO but BN. If UMNO could then decide it won the elections, could not BN parties do likewise and insist on unelectected leaders as proof of democracies within the parties? Could a member then be penalised if he exercised his democratic right to contest for either top post?

Then he embellishes his reasons and flounders in hot water. If Pak Lah did not ask it, why did he mention it? Was it a slip of the tongue, a Freudian slip, or an affirmantion that what is not, is; that since he did not ask for it, he did? That is his third reasoning: since the UMNO divisions and branches, who did not know they had to state their choices when they did not have to, and did not, the supreme council made the choice for them. That, Dato' Seri Najib, insists is what democracy is all about. If UMNO divisions and branches insist on following the rule book to make their choices, Dato' Seri Najib insists, it is their fault. But Pak Lah and he should be returned unopposed. The divisions and branches did not know that. So, the supreme council decides for them. But he made one mistake: those who vote are not those who hold office now, but those elected the next three months. So, if party members do not choose, when they need not or, more important, cannot, how could democracy survive in UMNO? Did they not know that for democracy to survive in UMNO, Pak Lah and Dato' Seri Najib must be chosen by those who cannot; since they did not, the Supreme Council, which cannot either, did on their behalf?

Besides, if this is Dato' Seri Najib's raison d'etre, why did not the Supreme Council decide that all its members be returned unopposed, with elections only for those not returned in the general elections and those who retired. The UMNO divisions and branches certainly did not decide what they cannot on elections for the other offices. So, why did the supreme council insist only the two top officers be elected? If it is UMNO's victory, should not every supreme council member partake in it and be declared elected. Or is it a creative way to ensure only the party president - the deputy is just ballast in this exercise -- is unchallenged. The president of the UMNO party cannot be elected, it seems, if special rules do not apply. Tun Mahathir Mohamed lost the 1987 election as president of UMNO the mass movement, but in a deliberately planned sleight of hand ensured he won. He then sat by while the courts declared UMNO illegal. And weighted the rules in the new UMNO so no one could ever challenge him. He retired last year, and his chosen successor is as frightened of a contest in UMNO as he. But the unanswered question is the point of elections for the other positions when an appointed president can ride roughshod over them? As invariably he does.

The central question to this puzzle is not answered. Did the UMNO supreme council on Monday night discuss and decide on this election of the president and deputy president? Those who should know are adamant it did not. A few supreme council members are so angry about it that they threaten to circulate letters to the UMNO divisions and branches about it. The simple truth is that UMNO is never as deeply divided as now. The general election made it worse. The election commission creatively helped the BN to return to office to forever raise doubts on its independence. The BN's huge electoral victory is a myth. If it had 30 seats less it would not have been. Using that then to shortcircuit the UMNO polls is dangerous. If Pak Lah and Dato' Seri Najib must be returned unopposed in September, the supreme council must do more to convince members. They could hold a press conference, individually or in groups, and each state their choices freely and frankly. Since every one, we are told, agreed, the need for secrecy disappears. Or the supreme council itself could call in the press to witness each one stating what Tan Sri Khalil and Dato' Seri Najib said they did, and prove the skeptics - whom the New Straits Times calls the "green-eyed monsters" - wrong. They could then put to rest this view, now gaining ground in UMNO circles, that they did not discuss the issue on Monday night.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com