Well, well, well, now! Look which pot we have calling the kettle black. Our 'beloved' retired - though I'm sure he wish he wasn't - ex-prime minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad is accusing Pak Lah of destroying the Barisan Nasional and asking him to step down.
I laughed so loud, I almost fell out of my chair. Dear Tun, Pak Lah did not destroy the BN. He just inherited the destruction process you had started during your 22-year dictatorship.
The corruption, the arrogance, the obscene megaprojects towering over slums populated by hard-done-by Malaysians, the brutal treatment of those who had an opinion contrary to yours - these are all things that were your legacy.
The thoroughly discredited judiciary, the instant-billionaire children of 'Umno royalty' - including your own - these are all your legacies.
The cronies who looted the country's treasury, the constant purges of Umno opponents, the shameful beating up of your most feared opponent - these are all part of what history will remember you for.
In fact, we all know what would have happened to leading opposition figures this past Sunday if you had still been prime minister. It would have been Operasi Lalang II.
Let's go back a bit further. It was your agitation during the late 1960s that played a big role in putting Malaysia on the racist path that has led to today's overwhelming problems.
The sheer arrogance of the man. Not only did he decide personally who would succeed him, but he even decided who would succeed his successor. Now that the prospects of his blue-eyed boy Najib look shaky, he's crying foul. Well, cry me a river!
Mahathir's sycophants drool over his supposed charisma. But the fact is, he's been nothing more than a lifelong opportunist who could always sense which way the wind was turning, and then used his oratorical and political machinations to take advantage of them.
Well, it looks like age hasn't diminished his ability to smell an opportunity. He knows Pak Lah is at his weakest now, and he has pounced right out of the gate to try and get his boy Najib installed in Putrajaya. Trouble is, he still needs to learn that loyalty in Umno is as fleeting as the post you hold. If he thinks Najib will be his hamba, he's sadly out of touch.
But I'm sure many Malaysians wish Mahathir nothing less than a long, long life - long enough for him to be around and watching when Anwar Ibrahim takes the oath of office as Prime Minister.
Whatever it is, don't listen to Mahathir
Before anyone gives any credence at all to anything that Dr Mahathir Mohamad may say, I would just like to say a few words of caution.
I am quite sure that Mahathir knows that it all started when he went against Tunku Abdul Rahman (who was until then by his (Tunku's) own admission 'the happiest Prime Minister in the world'). That was what they wanted after all, power and money.
It was not just him alone, but a whole group within Umno at the time who went by the name of the 'Contras' and who supposedly advocated an anti-Chinese stand (but nevertheless all had some Chinese tow kay or another behind them). Even today with their Hidup Melayu! while at the same time siphoning off as much money as they can through sheer abuse of their positions, both within and outside of government.
This marked the real start of money politics in Umno and Umno's foray into business and the corporate sector - so that not very long after the implementation of the NEP, the first victim of Umno's greed was the very bank set up to 'help' bumiputeras, Bank Bumiputra. Many other scandals involving enormous waste of government funds and mismanagement followed, all
of which could be covered up under the guise of the NEP and through control of all mass media.
Mahathir himself and his Umno (also MCA and MIC) cronies who got rich from all the money which they siphoned out of the system through sheer abuse of the NEP - and which was partly used to place him in power to take over as PM and to keep him there for 22 years, as well as to keep the BN in power for so long under Umno - are largely to blame for all these abuses.
Abdullah and Najib, who followed that lead and as inheritors of that systemic abuse are also responsible as serial abusers themselves. The evidence is clear - if only ACA was given a free hand to investigate.
It really does not matter whether Abdullah stays on or is replaced by Najib, as Mahathir wants. We all know that Mahathir is a man with his own agenda - national interest certainly being not a part of it. If they have not learnt their lesson and continue to abuse their positions, that will
certainly be the death knell of Umno and the BN with it. Then again, perhaps that will be better for this country.
Mahathir talks as if things would have beeen different under him or perhaps even under Najib (and the BN would not have lost so badly) and that Abdullah's arrogance and misplaced faith in his son-in-law was to blame. Perhaps this may be true, but that is the system which they inherited from Mahathir (and of course continued to abuse). I doubt if Abdullah's arrogance
could out-do Mahathir's anytime.
All I can say now is that if Umno and the BN and their leadership and members do not undertake the necessary self-reform at the federal level, they can expect to be overthrown in the next general elections.
However, if Sabah and Sarawak desert the BN now, which they should, the people will not have to wait for the next general elections for at least some hope of reform to begin so that all Malaysians can get on with life under more just, equitable and fairer conditions instead of letting all these elites continue to bleed the country dry while the rest of us and the country's resources pay for it.
Abdullah Junid
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