It was in the end of October 2003, that I could not remember the exact date, I attended a lunch function organised by Oxbridge Alumni. Tun Mahathir Mohamad was the Guest of Honour. That was properly one of the last official luncheon occasion. In the meeting, he was asked to give his speech. I could not remember what he had said. But, I still remember when he walked to the Grand Table which was just next to mine, he looked very tired. He hardly wish to walk longer than that. As usual, he shake hand with every one that wish to.
That year, he had managed to help the country to move away from the 1997 financial crisis. Ringgit was then stayed at RM3.80 fixed peg. Economic situation was in the convincing great and have not been better. UMNO was in good condition. Barisan Nasional remained as a 2/3 majority party in the Parliament. Malaysia had experienced a good number of current account surplus then. The government debt and security bill were in low level in comparing the GDP. Annual GDP growth stood at 5% point. Inflation number were in the marginal level (less than 3%). English was picked as medium of instruction for science and english subject in all levels of national education instution.
Back in the politics, Anwar Ibrahim was jailed then. Most supporters of Anwar during the 1998 reformation crisis had turned their hats back to UMNO. He controlled the whole event of politics. He announced his resignation at the UMNO General Assembly in 2002, of which many of his "ma chai" professed a "shock and unaccepted" situation. One of them, Datuk Paduka Rafidah Aziz, whom she had enjoyed her good working relationship as Minister with the Former Premier.
Siding the resignation, the immediate void was filled by Tun Abdullah Badawi, then Deputy Prime Minister. Most people have turned to Tun Abdullah Badawi, hoping that they will gain a further political advantage from him. Government servants' position and posting sorted preferably to the close ranking of the then Deputy Premier soon to be Premier. Nothing will be changed until the change of Premier. However, quite a fair bit of people moved their "chess" to Tun A Badawi, making Tun Mahathir felt uneasy for he was quite "free" as October 31st 2003 was approaching. And I believe, he is of free enough to attend a small function that we organised then. He may regret at once although its hard and almost not logical for him to remain in the government.
At last, the rest is history. Tun Badawi became Premier in Novemver 2003. Moment later, he acted according to the plan. He planned to have a national aleanation and alignment of voters and voting constituency. The number of parliamentary constituency increased to 222. He scored flying colour result in 2004 General Election. Barisan Nasional commanded more than 195 seats then. The success story of Tun Abdullah Badawi was riding on his moderate and mindful , the middle way (called on the Chinese) ; and couple with good national economic performance. The Malay supported Tun Badawi hoping that he may gained extra time for him to continue performing his traditional and moderate Malay image. The Chinese felt there was not any reason not to support him because the Government had provided a more lenient policy towards the Chinese language based education institution. More often, the economic growth and financial situation had been managed well then. The Indian had been parting with their Malay and Chinese counterpart.
The landslide win caused the Barisan Nasional government a dear price to pay during the 2008 General Election. More often, leaders in the BN assumed that the crisis (as 1999 opposition alternative front) was over. Most component parties asked for more as they won more seats then. More ministerial posts was created. Public expenditure increased and it caused development expenditure shrinked. Tun Badawi introduced its line of "corridor over corridor". Because of excessive spending and over powered of government aid to the ailing government linked and private business entities, current account surplus posted a "red number". The deficit was justified by increasing in government security and loan. KWAP, KWSP were the two biggest lender and bond holder of our Government Security Paper.
Amidst the continuation of government policy used to be created by his predecessor, Tun Badawi is more liberal and rely more on the government servant and standing operating procedure. And the procedure after procedure caused the thing turn bad and sour. There were certain action plan and thing to do , that can not be assimilated through proper process flow. Tun Mahathir understood that. Tun Badawi followed and enjoyed his own sweet time. Because he got almost the whole nation to support him. He thought he controlled the whole event. Tun Mahathir had warned him for not leaving a space worrying that the economic growth would slow down. Unfortunately, Tun Mahathir was right. Those Corridors that was brought forward by Tun Abdullah was not able to make progress. Tun Badawi then blamed the failure to his predecessor, as more money had gone to repayment of bad loan and debt due to the short term borrowing. Instead of risking himself to continue proliferate "supply base economy", Tun Badawi tried to work on "balance budget". It meant to spend what ever earn. Then, Tun Badawi is a "Mr Nice Man", which he discouraged and did not permit high income tax regime. He preferred a moderate and self sustained situation. So, economic situation was at a standstill situation. In sustaining continuous bombarding from Tun Mahathir, Tun Badawi continued to keep quiet. Ironically, judicial review of the case of Sodomy - Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim was released later. Tun Mahathir became more vocal.
The whole of UMNO had been reengineered to become an true and moderate party. That was a post nationalist - a re-own and PURE Malay political party. The fact remained - DIRTY is the rule of game for politics. Perhaps, Tun Badawi was trying to demonstrate his loving kindness by instituting a moderate and nice management program. He gave chances to his "ma chai" to perform and they had performed badly. He still thought his way will work. Consensus popularity pole still remain on good result.
Tun Mahathir and Tunku Razaleigh had in several occasion sounded an alarming situation for the economic contraction. American Sub Prime crisis blowed up. Our export to USA and EU countries affected badly. Many private firms affected badly. Some said 2008 March was not a good time to hold the General Election and it can drag on until mid 2009. Tun Badawi decided so, simply because he wanted to avoid a direct confrontation with Anwar Ibrahim, whom he had to wait until August 2008 for his lift from the 5 year ban after his release.
In fact, all the calculation and measurement were correct and could be justified except one very crucial and critical failure inventory of Barisan Nasional - the internet enable media, the blog, the website, ....
In 1999, Tun Mahathir managed to pull himself thru, by attracting Chinese voters and stiff censorship of media , and blocking most of the undesired information to the general public at the rural area. Tun Mahathir had used all its government agencies and ministerial functions to govern more support. Internet was not popular, and its only being used general business entities. In 2004, Barisan National under UMNO worked very well, because the people wanted Tun Badawi. Internet enable blog and media did not function well.
In 2007, soon after the BERSIH 1 riot, more people had gone to internet to view the news. Tun Mahathir had also continued bombarded Tun Badawi for his non performance. The "LINGAM correct correct correct Case" made the matter worst. Televised Video and Short Film that was posted on the You Tube by the then Opposition Front , and in fact posted mostly by their supporters created high negative remarks towards the ruling Barisan Nasional. Barisan Nasional was over confident then, that most of their leaders had been basing on 2004 results, and they thought that they could still win the General Election and still be able to govern 2/3 majority although the margin might be lower, and the number of seats might reduce. There was a surprise then. BN lost its 2/3, or rather, the opposition front had denied BN 2/3 majority. And to be more surprise, BN lost in Perak, Selangor, Penang, Kedah and Kelantan. It retained Terengganu in which most expect BN lost.
The Opposition, having governed this five states, in which eventually they lost Perak due to power struggle and the defact of few representatives from the Opposition to the ruling BN. Kedah was also lost in 2013 due to mis management and shortfall good leadership quality. Selangor remained the stronghold of the Opposition.
The formation of the Opposition is rather an incidental matter. All of them, Democratic Action Party (DAP) , Parti Agama Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) had formed an alliance - PAKATAN RAKYAT . Parti Keadilan Malaysia was formed shortly before the general election in 1999. Parti Rakyat Malaysia was long established as a socialist political entity. The two were merged forming Parti Keadilan Rakyat in 3rd August 2003.
The Opposition took position, formed an alliance to challenge BN in the coming general election. It was never before in the history of General Election that the BN was meant to be changed. BN had lost its 2/3 majority. In fact, Pakatan required only 30 more MPs to make the change. There were rumous that some MPs from Sabah and Sarawak intended to join the Opposition to form a new coalition. Some of the MPs was believed to be involved in the negotiation.
BN then under the premiership of Tun Badawi had done nothing but continue to lose his grip over the influential power among the RULERS, the government agencies, members of UMNO and its coalition party members of BN. Tun Mahathir can no longer stood by his side. He chose to give hard line and massive pressure towards Tun Badawi. In the end, Tun Badawi gave in and he resigned in 2009. Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak replaced Tun Badawi to become Premier, felling short of failure of the General Election by losing the 2/3 majority. More importantly, UMNO had to depend on other ruling parties coalition members especially from Sabah and Sarawak to continue in the government.
Others members of the BN namely MCA, Gerakan and MIC has technically lost their support from the people. They are irrelevant now.
When DS Najib took over in 2009, he quickly spelt the words " 1 Malaysia". 1 Malaysia became the lime light of everything you may touch and you may see. In so doing, he tried to demonstrate a rightly radical - Pro Malay Consensus Policy, with the commitment to project kind patron of projecting a harmony view of one nation, one race, one issue and one language. He started One Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) in which it turned hair wire now. He spent excessively putting the eyes of the public into real picture for his commitment to make the country a better and nicer place to stay. DS Najib had instructed all government agencies and party machineries to profess the key word of "1 Malaysia" The results was quite disappointed.
It proved that this reengineering process of this political entity was not coincide with the war plan of DS Najib. It was not his own idea, and the original idea came after the advise of the Corporate and Strategic Consultant whom they pick up the idea of "1 Israel". Its intent was to pick up a good slogan such that they can continue to pick up the good sense and points thereby ignoring and outlaw the bad points and bad publicity. However, slogan is purely meant for publicity. Its a marketing tool. Tun Badawi used the slogan "Cemerlang, Gemilang , Terbilang". It meant "Excellent, Glory and Distinction".
DS Najib felt that he should build in an element to foster the tie within the ethnic groups. He landed specific target group of audience. He ignored those unrelated and hard core constituency. His target was to gain the 2/3 majority from the 13th General Election. Regaining the State of Selangor was his immediate agenda. He charted those possible constituency that he needed to win. He needed 148 seats from 222 seats. BN won 85 seats in West Malaysia, plus Sabah 22seats and Sarawak 25 seats and Wilayah Persekutuan Labuan 1 seat , bringing total number of seats at 133 seats. Pakatan Rakyat had won 80 seats in West Malaysia, 3 seats in Sabah and 6 seats in Sarawak, totalling at 89 seats.
Consensus and unwritten knowledge that several seats in West Malaysia that might have won by BN due to strong support from the members from the national security and defence units - the police force and arm forces. Analysing the election results of 13th GE, BN might face stiff competition from PR in West Malaysia. There will be 20 seats under PAS, 26 seats under PKR and 5 seats under DAP bringing total number of 51 seats. All of these seats were either won before by PR in 12th GE or with a relative mix ethnic composition; meaning that those are marked as "Grey Area" by BN. In addition, there will be 4 more from Sabah and 2 more from Sarawak that PR may have chance to en route, bringing total 57 seats. PR shall rule the government upon the next GE if it manages to garner another 23 seats out of 57 seats (ie. 40%). Numerically, this could be possible if BN lose another 0.6%, and PR gain another gain 0.41% and the remaining 0.19% goes to minority or spoilt votes; PR shall be 4.5% more than BN (Currently, according the official results of 13th GE, PR gained 50.87% of popular votes and BN gained 47.38%. The minority and independent secured 1.75%. PR gained 3.49% more votes than BN). Converting to number of votes, 0.41% is approximately 50000 votes, and that is not difficult to achieve.
Further, more new voters are due to register in the next 2 years. If it is assumed 1/3 of the 3 million unregistered voters to register and eligible to vote in the next GE, and the existing voters pattern remains unchanged, PR needs to gain 55% from the new voters. Consensus unwritten rule implies that young voters shall be more incline to anti-establishment; and their high penetration into internet and unconventional new media, meaning that more likely they will vote for PR and it would surpass 56%. It is with this assumption that Tun Mahathir has warned BN that they will lose in the next GE unless something drastic measure to be carried out. He pointed out several points of unanswered clue for that may cause BN lose in the next GE. He has requested UMNO-BN to change his Premier, and to replace with a more influential leader.
In nutshell, UMNO needs to be re-engineered. It has gone so far now. 1MDB is proven to be a non popular product. It is too late to say the "kaizen" - a slow and steady way of continuous improvement of its process flow of political management. Previous GE results proved that they are no longer gaining the support from other ethnic group. In the last UMNO General Assembly, they have further built up more firewall - further strengthening of power grip by authorian rule; satisfying the fear of losing its grip of political power. As a senior statesman and UMNO member, Tun Mahathir has the choice to contribute his position.
It is quite tough now to change, because DS Najib has done something what is must and what he wants. Leaders in UMNO may not be able to do anything if the RAKYAT chose to change them. The law of nature demonstrates that for living thing and matter, it comes a BEGIN and an END. For instance, human being BEGIN their lives when their parents perform the amalgamation, with the mothers deliver them as babies, grow from infants, as young children, mature, getting old, sick and END their lives. So Does UMNO!!!!! Political re-engineering may elongate their life span, but it is temporary measure. At least, Tun Mahathir has done what he can to salvage the situation. Until then, it is my hope that what ever change to be made is for the sake of this beautiful country, side lining of personal acumen and agenda, but for the RAKYAT.
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