In my younger and politically naïve days, I often wondered why it was that Abdullah Ahmad Badawi did not even try to introduce any significant reforms in the areas which he said he would reform prior to the 2004 general elections.
Four years on, I am, hopefully, less naïve, and hence, not willing to believe the possibility that the BN or Umno can reform itself or introduce reform in any significant way in the run up to the next general election, due before 2013.
In this two-part article, I want to argue two points. The first point is this – that the BN is structurally incapable of introducing reform in ways that can win back a significant proportion of the vote it lost in March 2008.
The second point – that the opposition is also in danger of not introducing many of the reforms that it has been pushing for when it did not control five state governments and that if Pakatan ever takes control of the government at the federal level, is it in danger of perhaps being as resistant to introducing substantive reform as the BN is now, if it is not careful.
Here’s my argument for the first point. The many years of electoral dominance covering the period from 1974 to just prior to 2008 has left the BN incapable of responding to the changing demands of the electorate in the areas of good governance, reducing corruption and moderation in its policies.
In other words, why try to reduce corruption when the electorate has not punished you significantly for indulging in what was and continue to be more-or-less generally accepted practices of “greasing the wheels” of power?
As a result of their electoral dominance, competition was shifted to within the individual parties that make up the BN, which meant that BN as a whole was growing less and less responsive to the electorate and more and more used to intra-party competition within each component party.
Sitting at the top of the food chain within the BN is Umno and a story about the effects of intra-party competition has to start with Umno given its dominant position within the BN. As Umno’s electoral position and its dominant position within the BN became more and more entrenched, the focus of competition in this party shifted from an external to an internal perspective.
There is a standing joke among journalists and diplomats in Malaysia that the Umno general assembly elections are the real elections which determine the direction the country will take rather than the general elections. This “joke” is closer to the truth than many of the other BN component parties would care to admit.
Without an urgent need to respond to the demands of the electorate, the basis of competition within Umno revolves around two axes – patronage and playing the nationalist card – the former being much more important than the latter.
'Buying' delegates is not something new
Who got what position within the Umno leadership ranks was determined less by the administrative or leadership capabilities of a candidate but by how much money he or she is willing to spend on “buying” delegates. This is not something new.
Dr Mahathir Mohamad was railing about the negative influences of “money politics” for the longest time. The difference is that he never had to “buy” delegates, at least not Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah in 1987.
Significantly, Mahathir never really cracked down on the practice of vote buying within Umno. He simply chided the leaders like little schoolchildren but never lifted the whip against them. It was almost as if he grudgingly accepted this practice as the price of remaining in power, both for himself as well as for Umno.
As Umno became increasingly isolated from electoral pressures, it became increasingly arrogant and failed to see the need to moderate its positions in a manner that was supposed to be part and parcel of the spirit of “compromise” that is the BN.
How else can one explain the fact that the then head of Umno Youth (who is stepping down to contest as a vice-president candidate in the upcoming Umno general assembly elections) so willingly defended the position of the Youth wing in raising the keris as well as the ensuing rhetoric during the telecast of the 2006 Umno general assembly.
This is despite his contesting in a parliamentary seat in the 2004 general elections that had the following ethnic composition – 50 percent Malay, 39 percent Chinese, 10 percent Indian, one percent Others (The seat was Sembrong in Johor).
How else can one explain the fact that two years after winning 91 percent of parliamentary seats in the 2004 general elections, such statements were made at the same Umno general assembly meeting of the Youth wing: "Datuk Hisham has unsheathed his keris, waved his keris, kissed his keris. We want to ask Datuk Hisham when is he going to use it."
At this point, I’d like to disabuse the notion that Umno needs to be in a position of strength or of weakness before it can “concede” certain rights to the non-Malays in Malaysia. The argument of conceding from a point of strength goes something like this – as long as Umno is politically weak, it will feel too insecure to concede any rights to the non-Malays.
Hence, it has to be strong before it can make these concessions. This is more or less the MCA’s argument for non-Malays to vote for Umno.
The argument of conceding from a point of weakness goes something like this – as long as Umno is strong, it will not see any need to make concessions to non-Malays. Only if it loses Malay ground will it make concessions to the non-Malays because the non-Malay vote in some of the mixed seats in which Umno candidates run in will become more valuable.
No major 'concessions' from Abdullah
Both these arguments fall short because both assume that Umno responds to electoral pressures on the part of the non-Malays in predictable ways. The reality is that the non-Malay parties of MCA, MIC and Gerakan are much more dependent on the Malay vote to win many of their seats than Umno is dependent on the votes of the non-Malays to win their seats.
Even the supposed liberalisation that occurred in the early 1990s in the cultural and educational spheres were mostly as a result of Mahathir’s dominance within Umno and certain favourable conditions in regard to issuing satellite TV licences and the potential for private higher education as a provider of jobs and growth in a changing economy.
Abdullah certainly did not make any sort of major “concessions” from a position of strength. It is hard to see Najib Razak making major concessions to the non-Malays from a position of weakness. Indeed the opposite is likely to happen.
The basis of competition within the MCA, the second largest party within the BN, is also largely based on the nexus of power and patronage, even if sometimes the language of the debate is framed using the language of “principles”.
For example, during the fight between Ling Liong Sik and Lim Ah Lek, the takeover of Nanyang by Huaren Holdings was used as a wedge issue by Team B, which was headed by Ah Lek, on the premise that it would reduce press freedom and choice among the readers of Chinese newspapers.
In reality MCA has never stood for press freedom, not in the way the Nanyang takeover issue was “framed” by certain quarters. Competition within the MCA was never structured around who could be a better bulwark against the bullying presence of Umno.
What was more worrying about the MCA was the fact that some of the fights for the top leadership position in the party have been influenced by Umno leaders in the past, namely Mahathir. The over-dependence of some of the MCA leaders on the goodwill of an Umno president for their own positions within the MCA obviously weakens MCA bargaining position vis-à-vis Umno.
While the current MCA president, Ong Tee Keat, has not been pursuing a particularly aggressive approach towards negotiations with Umno (which one may think was necessary after March 2008), at least his leadership position within MCA was not obtained as a result of the direct influence of the Umno deputy and its president.
For Gerakan and MIC, the two smaller parties within the BN in Peninsular Malaysia, intra-party competition has been marked by its relative absence during the leadership of S Samy Vellu in the MIC, which is still ongoing and of Lim Keng Yaik, who only recently stepped down, as president of Gerakan.
'Demonising an united opposition'
In both these parties, as long as internal dissent could be effectively quelled, both party presidents could manage the expectations of its members in terms of the respective party’s relationship with Umno.
In other words, the fact that there was little danger of the longstanding leaders of both these parties losing their positions as party presidents because of internal unhappiness over how they “dealt” with positions which Umno took and continue to take means that the dominance of Umno could be maintained free of any “threats” from these two parties.
(Apologies at this point to readers in Sabah and Sarawak for not including the East Malaysian parties in this discussion partly because of insufficient knowledge on the part of the author.)
This particular configuration of internal party competition – patronage and nationalistic rhetoric on the part of Umno and patronage and dependence on Umno on the part of the other three component parties in Peninsular Malaysia, could survive intact and relatively free from electoral pressures as long as the external factors associated with BN’s electoral dominance could be maintained.
These external factors are (i) a growing economy (ii) a fractured opposition (iii) the “demonising” of an united opposition (iv) strict control of information (v) a “capture” middle class.
The manner in which these factors work, by themselves as well as lending strength to each other, to help BN maintain its position of electoral dominance should not be too difficult to see. As long as economic growth was high and everyone had a fair share of a growing pie, voters could overlook the abuse of power within the BN and Umno’s dominance within the coalition.
Similarly an opposition that was divided or even when united in the form of Gagasan Rakyat and APU in 1990 or the Barisan Alternatif in 1999 but was susceptible to being attacked by Umno as well as the non-Malay component parties (DAP was portrayed as being anti-Malay, PAS as the party who would put the country under theocratic rule), could not provide an effective electoral challenge to the dominance of the BN.
Strict control of information through the muzzling of the press, the use of the Sedition Act and the Official Secrets Act meant that a lot of the misdeeds of the BN could be easily “covered up”. A middle class that was “captured” by a growing economy and the long arm of the state and the lack of a credible opposition to vote for helps suppress a potential opposition voting block that would otherwise have greater autonomy because of their growing wealth and education levels.
Signs were already apparent
While March 2008 threw the efficacy of these factors out of the window, the BN should have realised that the signs were already apparent from the 1999 general elections. Had the 680,000 “late” registered voters been allowed to vote, the BN would have lost more than the 45 parliamentary seats which it did.
Karpal Singh and Lim Kit Siang probably would not have lost. Keadilan would have gained a few more parliamentary seats in the mixed areas in Selangor, Perak and Penang. Voters then had already showed willingness to hand the BN, at least in Peninsular Malaysia, a serious electoral blow.
This was exactly the point made by Khairy Jamaluddin, in an interview with the Nutgraph and more recently with Malaysiakini. March 2008 confirmed the trend that had begun in 1999. The external factors which the BN had been dependent on previously to hold on to power had unraveled to the extent that it was possible now to envision the BN losing more than half the parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia.
The economy will not return to the heydays of double digit GDP growth, the opposition is proving that it can govern together as a coalition in the states currently controlled by Pakatan, demonising the DAP and PAS no longer is as effective as it once was especially for younger voters, the internet has made access to alternative media sources much more widely available and the middle class now has a genuine alternative to vote for.
What does this change herald for the BN especially with regard to its ability to reform itself and to change its policies?
In most democracies, a party which is defeated or is in danger of a possible defeat at the polls would change its leadership and tweak its political message to respond to the changing political environment.
While Umno is in the process of a leadership transition, the fact remains that the basis of competition within the BN parties, especially Umno, has not changed even as the external environment has. As such, the BN is structurally incapable of reform even at a time when it seems that it needs to reform itself to ensure its political survival.
The upcoming Umno general assembly election is a good indication of the inability of Umno to reform itself during these crucial times. The rhetoric leading up to these elections are shorn of any of the reform message which helped Abdullah win 91 percent of parliamentary seats in 2004.
Instead, the chest thumping, nationalistic fervour of many of the candidates for the top positions, especially in the much-watched Umno Youth contest, has been defining the “mood” of the upcoming assembly. It would not surprise me if the tone of the assembly takes an even more nationalist bent compared to the 2006 general assembly.
At the same time, the leaders of the other BN component parties are powerless to stop the rise in this kind of inflammatory rhetoric on the part of their Umno counterparts. Umno leaders and members alike scorn at the fact that these parties failed to deliver the non-Malay vote in March 2008 and that many of these leaders depended on the Malay vote to win their seats in March 2008.
Any threat would not be credible
Finally, the Umno leaders know full well that any threat issued by these parties that they would leave the BN “or else” would not be credible. By leaving the BN, they would lose access to the levers of power which is the lifeblood of patronage that these parties are still dependent on.
Furthermore, it is not as if any of the Pakatan parties would want to cede any seats to either MCA, Gerakan or MIC, if any of them were to choose to leave the BN. Trying to win seats as a third party is almost impossible given the electoral system and the lack of political space for a third party to make itself political relevant.
The leaders of these component parties are not exactly helping themselves either. Ong Tee Keat, while busy consolidating his power within the party, has not given any indication of how he will stand up to the party that was mostly responsible for the decline of MCA’s electoral fortunes, namely Umno.
Koh Tsu Koon does not seem to have emerged from the dominating shadow of his predecessor, Lim Keng Yaik. Samy Vellu is still trying to hold on to his position as MIC president despite his tremendous unpopularity within the Indian community.
Furthermore, these three parties, perhaps because of mutual distrust built up over the many years in power, have not even tried to make a concerted effort to pressure Umno from within over key issues such as the ISA arrest of Teresa Kok, the inflammatory statements made by Ahmad Ismail during the Permatang Pauh campaing, the death of A Kugan whilst in police custody and so on.
The recent rebuff by Samy against Gerakan leader Hew Cheng Guan over his proposal that Gerakan merge with MIC is symptomatic of the inability of these three parties to come together, which is the only way that they could gain some leverage in terms of their bargaining position vis-à-vis Umno.
Hence, as long as the internal structure of the BN and its component parties remain the same, it is virtually impossible for the BN to reform itself. If Najib wants to give in to some of the demands of the non-Malays, then his own party members will attack him. If Najib wants to reform the judiciary, the police and the anti-corruption agency in significant ways, he would probably lose control of the very instruments he feels are responsible for keeping the BN in power now.
In other words, there is no easy course of reform which Najib can pursue without alienating a large number of members within his own party or to further weaken his own hold on power.
So, the next time you hear from someone that Umno or the BN is serious about reforming itself or a columnist saying that Umno or a BN component party should push for a reform agenda, ask him or her to chart out the path by which this reform agenda can be implemented.
Malaysiakini
08/03/09
Four years on, I am, hopefully, less naïve, and hence, not willing to believe the possibility that the BN or Umno can reform itself or introduce reform in any significant way in the run up to the next general election, due before 2013.
In this two-part article, I want to argue two points. The first point is this – that the BN is structurally incapable of introducing reform in ways that can win back a significant proportion of the vote it lost in March 2008.
The second point – that the opposition is also in danger of not introducing many of the reforms that it has been pushing for when it did not control five state governments and that if Pakatan ever takes control of the government at the federal level, is it in danger of perhaps being as resistant to introducing substantive reform as the BN is now, if it is not careful.
Here’s my argument for the first point. The many years of electoral dominance covering the period from 1974 to just prior to 2008 has left the BN incapable of responding to the changing demands of the electorate in the areas of good governance, reducing corruption and moderation in its policies.
In other words, why try to reduce corruption when the electorate has not punished you significantly for indulging in what was and continue to be more-or-less generally accepted practices of “greasing the wheels” of power?
As a result of their electoral dominance, competition was shifted to within the individual parties that make up the BN, which meant that BN as a whole was growing less and less responsive to the electorate and more and more used to intra-party competition within each component party.
Sitting at the top of the food chain within the BN is Umno and a story about the effects of intra-party competition has to start with Umno given its dominant position within the BN. As Umno’s electoral position and its dominant position within the BN became more and more entrenched, the focus of competition in this party shifted from an external to an internal perspective.
There is a standing joke among journalists and diplomats in Malaysia that the Umno general assembly elections are the real elections which determine the direction the country will take rather than the general elections. This “joke” is closer to the truth than many of the other BN component parties would care to admit.
Without an urgent need to respond to the demands of the electorate, the basis of competition within Umno revolves around two axes – patronage and playing the nationalist card – the former being much more important than the latter.
'Buying' delegates is not something new
Who got what position within the Umno leadership ranks was determined less by the administrative or leadership capabilities of a candidate but by how much money he or she is willing to spend on “buying” delegates. This is not something new.
Dr Mahathir Mohamad was railing about the negative influences of “money politics” for the longest time. The difference is that he never had to “buy” delegates, at least not Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah in 1987.
Significantly, Mahathir never really cracked down on the practice of vote buying within Umno. He simply chided the leaders like little schoolchildren but never lifted the whip against them. It was almost as if he grudgingly accepted this practice as the price of remaining in power, both for himself as well as for Umno.
As Umno became increasingly isolated from electoral pressures, it became increasingly arrogant and failed to see the need to moderate its positions in a manner that was supposed to be part and parcel of the spirit of “compromise” that is the BN.
How else can one explain the fact that the then head of Umno Youth (who is stepping down to contest as a vice-president candidate in the upcoming Umno general assembly elections) so willingly defended the position of the Youth wing in raising the keris as well as the ensuing rhetoric during the telecast of the 2006 Umno general assembly.
This is despite his contesting in a parliamentary seat in the 2004 general elections that had the following ethnic composition – 50 percent Malay, 39 percent Chinese, 10 percent Indian, one percent Others (The seat was Sembrong in Johor).
How else can one explain the fact that two years after winning 91 percent of parliamentary seats in the 2004 general elections, such statements were made at the same Umno general assembly meeting of the Youth wing: "Datuk Hisham has unsheathed his keris, waved his keris, kissed his keris. We want to ask Datuk Hisham when is he going to use it."
At this point, I’d like to disabuse the notion that Umno needs to be in a position of strength or of weakness before it can “concede” certain rights to the non-Malays in Malaysia. The argument of conceding from a point of strength goes something like this – as long as Umno is politically weak, it will feel too insecure to concede any rights to the non-Malays.
Hence, it has to be strong before it can make these concessions. This is more or less the MCA’s argument for non-Malays to vote for Umno.
The argument of conceding from a point of weakness goes something like this – as long as Umno is strong, it will not see any need to make concessions to non-Malays. Only if it loses Malay ground will it make concessions to the non-Malays because the non-Malay vote in some of the mixed seats in which Umno candidates run in will become more valuable.
No major 'concessions' from Abdullah
Both these arguments fall short because both assume that Umno responds to electoral pressures on the part of the non-Malays in predictable ways. The reality is that the non-Malay parties of MCA, MIC and Gerakan are much more dependent on the Malay vote to win many of their seats than Umno is dependent on the votes of the non-Malays to win their seats.
Even the supposed liberalisation that occurred in the early 1990s in the cultural and educational spheres were mostly as a result of Mahathir’s dominance within Umno and certain favourable conditions in regard to issuing satellite TV licences and the potential for private higher education as a provider of jobs and growth in a changing economy.
Abdullah certainly did not make any sort of major “concessions” from a position of strength. It is hard to see Najib Razak making major concessions to the non-Malays from a position of weakness. Indeed the opposite is likely to happen.
The basis of competition within the MCA, the second largest party within the BN, is also largely based on the nexus of power and patronage, even if sometimes the language of the debate is framed using the language of “principles”.
For example, during the fight between Ling Liong Sik and Lim Ah Lek, the takeover of Nanyang by Huaren Holdings was used as a wedge issue by Team B, which was headed by Ah Lek, on the premise that it would reduce press freedom and choice among the readers of Chinese newspapers.
In reality MCA has never stood for press freedom, not in the way the Nanyang takeover issue was “framed” by certain quarters. Competition within the MCA was never structured around who could be a better bulwark against the bullying presence of Umno.
What was more worrying about the MCA was the fact that some of the fights for the top leadership position in the party have been influenced by Umno leaders in the past, namely Mahathir. The over-dependence of some of the MCA leaders on the goodwill of an Umno president for their own positions within the MCA obviously weakens MCA bargaining position vis-à-vis Umno.
While the current MCA president, Ong Tee Keat, has not been pursuing a particularly aggressive approach towards negotiations with Umno (which one may think was necessary after March 2008), at least his leadership position within MCA was not obtained as a result of the direct influence of the Umno deputy and its president.
For Gerakan and MIC, the two smaller parties within the BN in Peninsular Malaysia, intra-party competition has been marked by its relative absence during the leadership of S Samy Vellu in the MIC, which is still ongoing and of Lim Keng Yaik, who only recently stepped down, as president of Gerakan.
'Demonising an united opposition'
In both these parties, as long as internal dissent could be effectively quelled, both party presidents could manage the expectations of its members in terms of the respective party’s relationship with Umno.
In other words, the fact that there was little danger of the longstanding leaders of both these parties losing their positions as party presidents because of internal unhappiness over how they “dealt” with positions which Umno took and continue to take means that the dominance of Umno could be maintained free of any “threats” from these two parties.
(Apologies at this point to readers in Sabah and Sarawak for not including the East Malaysian parties in this discussion partly because of insufficient knowledge on the part of the author.)
This particular configuration of internal party competition – patronage and nationalistic rhetoric on the part of Umno and patronage and dependence on Umno on the part of the other three component parties in Peninsular Malaysia, could survive intact and relatively free from electoral pressures as long as the external factors associated with BN’s electoral dominance could be maintained.
These external factors are (i) a growing economy (ii) a fractured opposition (iii) the “demonising” of an united opposition (iv) strict control of information (v) a “capture” middle class.
The manner in which these factors work, by themselves as well as lending strength to each other, to help BN maintain its position of electoral dominance should not be too difficult to see. As long as economic growth was high and everyone had a fair share of a growing pie, voters could overlook the abuse of power within the BN and Umno’s dominance within the coalition.
Similarly an opposition that was divided or even when united in the form of Gagasan Rakyat and APU in 1990 or the Barisan Alternatif in 1999 but was susceptible to being attacked by Umno as well as the non-Malay component parties (DAP was portrayed as being anti-Malay, PAS as the party who would put the country under theocratic rule), could not provide an effective electoral challenge to the dominance of the BN.
Strict control of information through the muzzling of the press, the use of the Sedition Act and the Official Secrets Act meant that a lot of the misdeeds of the BN could be easily “covered up”. A middle class that was “captured” by a growing economy and the long arm of the state and the lack of a credible opposition to vote for helps suppress a potential opposition voting block that would otherwise have greater autonomy because of their growing wealth and education levels.
Signs were already apparent
While March 2008 threw the efficacy of these factors out of the window, the BN should have realised that the signs were already apparent from the 1999 general elections. Had the 680,000 “late” registered voters been allowed to vote, the BN would have lost more than the 45 parliamentary seats which it did.
Karpal Singh and Lim Kit Siang probably would not have lost. Keadilan would have gained a few more parliamentary seats in the mixed areas in Selangor, Perak and Penang. Voters then had already showed willingness to hand the BN, at least in Peninsular Malaysia, a serious electoral blow.
This was exactly the point made by Khairy Jamaluddin, in an interview with the Nutgraph and more recently with Malaysiakini. March 2008 confirmed the trend that had begun in 1999. The external factors which the BN had been dependent on previously to hold on to power had unraveled to the extent that it was possible now to envision the BN losing more than half the parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia.
The economy will not return to the heydays of double digit GDP growth, the opposition is proving that it can govern together as a coalition in the states currently controlled by Pakatan, demonising the DAP and PAS no longer is as effective as it once was especially for younger voters, the internet has made access to alternative media sources much more widely available and the middle class now has a genuine alternative to vote for.
What does this change herald for the BN especially with regard to its ability to reform itself and to change its policies?
In most democracies, a party which is defeated or is in danger of a possible defeat at the polls would change its leadership and tweak its political message to respond to the changing political environment.
While Umno is in the process of a leadership transition, the fact remains that the basis of competition within the BN parties, especially Umno, has not changed even as the external environment has. As such, the BN is structurally incapable of reform even at a time when it seems that it needs to reform itself to ensure its political survival.
The upcoming Umno general assembly election is a good indication of the inability of Umno to reform itself during these crucial times. The rhetoric leading up to these elections are shorn of any of the reform message which helped Abdullah win 91 percent of parliamentary seats in 2004.
Instead, the chest thumping, nationalistic fervour of many of the candidates for the top positions, especially in the much-watched Umno Youth contest, has been defining the “mood” of the upcoming assembly. It would not surprise me if the tone of the assembly takes an even more nationalist bent compared to the 2006 general assembly.
At the same time, the leaders of the other BN component parties are powerless to stop the rise in this kind of inflammatory rhetoric on the part of their Umno counterparts. Umno leaders and members alike scorn at the fact that these parties failed to deliver the non-Malay vote in March 2008 and that many of these leaders depended on the Malay vote to win their seats in March 2008.
Any threat would not be credible
Finally, the Umno leaders know full well that any threat issued by these parties that they would leave the BN “or else” would not be credible. By leaving the BN, they would lose access to the levers of power which is the lifeblood of patronage that these parties are still dependent on.
Furthermore, it is not as if any of the Pakatan parties would want to cede any seats to either MCA, Gerakan or MIC, if any of them were to choose to leave the BN. Trying to win seats as a third party is almost impossible given the electoral system and the lack of political space for a third party to make itself political relevant.
The leaders of these component parties are not exactly helping themselves either. Ong Tee Keat, while busy consolidating his power within the party, has not given any indication of how he will stand up to the party that was mostly responsible for the decline of MCA’s electoral fortunes, namely Umno.
Koh Tsu Koon does not seem to have emerged from the dominating shadow of his predecessor, Lim Keng Yaik. Samy Vellu is still trying to hold on to his position as MIC president despite his tremendous unpopularity within the Indian community.
Furthermore, these three parties, perhaps because of mutual distrust built up over the many years in power, have not even tried to make a concerted effort to pressure Umno from within over key issues such as the ISA arrest of Teresa Kok, the inflammatory statements made by Ahmad Ismail during the Permatang Pauh campaing, the death of A Kugan whilst in police custody and so on.
The recent rebuff by Samy against Gerakan leader Hew Cheng Guan over his proposal that Gerakan merge with MIC is symptomatic of the inability of these three parties to come together, which is the only way that they could gain some leverage in terms of their bargaining position vis-à-vis Umno.
Hence, as long as the internal structure of the BN and its component parties remain the same, it is virtually impossible for the BN to reform itself. If Najib wants to give in to some of the demands of the non-Malays, then his own party members will attack him. If Najib wants to reform the judiciary, the police and the anti-corruption agency in significant ways, he would probably lose control of the very instruments he feels are responsible for keeping the BN in power now.
In other words, there is no easy course of reform which Najib can pursue without alienating a large number of members within his own party or to further weaken his own hold on power.
So, the next time you hear from someone that Umno or the BN is serious about reforming itself or a columnist saying that Umno or a BN component party should push for a reform agenda, ask him or her to chart out the path by which this reform agenda can be implemented.
Malaysiakini
08/03/09
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