Remember what I posted in Is AAB's position in UMNO shaky??
I commented that with his supporters, including the media mouthpieces, all urging UMNO members to 'support' AAB against Dr Mahathir, his (AAB's) authority and status in UMNO are not as solid as he ought to have been enjoying as its president and the nation's prime minister.
Thus, I am not surprised at all that yesterday UMNO supreme council backed down from the most important item of its proposed agenda, that of a publicly voiced threat during the past few days to remove Dr Mahathir from his advisory positions to government linked companies.
All AAB could come up with was that the council has ‘decided to let’ Dr Mahathir stay on as advisor.
AAB also consoled the main instigator for Dr Mahathir’s removal, the Kedah UMNO, saying the council had 'taken note' of Kedah UMNO's 'request'.
The Kedah Mentri Besar, Mahdzir Khalid, had been the main driver of the push to remove Dr Mahathir from those advisory roles, on the surface, as a punishment for launching attacks against AAB after the two leaders had met recently, but in truth, to show that UMNO Kedahans (particularly himself) are ‘loyal’ to AAB, just as they HAD been to Dr Mahathir!
Look, what the MB had proposed was nothing compared to its Youth wing. The Kedah UMNO Youth had even proposed that Dr Mahathir's Umno membership be suspended.
The recently openly announced threat to remove Dr Mahathir from his advisory positions had been nothing more than typical UMNO ‘testing of the waters’ by a few members to suss out the party’s support for an AAB counter-attack against the former party president.
It would appear that AAB’s dipping of his toe into the ‘waters’ told him it’s too bloody cold for a ‘bath’ (an UMNO blood bath). Unfortunately we wouldn’t know whether the supreme council had a ‘confidential’ stoush and punch-up yesterday?
So AAB put on his best face and talked his usual moderate ‘firm and fair’ spin but that’s it. Round 1 to Dr Mahathir.
But surely the following would have to be nominated as the best political spin for 2006.
AAB pointed out that if the party took action against Dr Mahathir, then as a party member the Grand Ole Man had to abide by it, and might not be able to speak anymore.
How sweet, how considerate, how democratic!
AAB concluded: "It is not a question of being afraid [to act against Dr Mahathir], but it's a question of, we don't think we'd like to take action against him now. Let him say whatever he wants to say so that we can hear all that he would like to say. Let him speak so that we can know."
We are a ‘know’ledge nation, if not anything!
I would disagree that this round goes to Dr. M. On the surface it may appear to be but its actually a percursor to the UMNO General Assembly.
ReplyDeleteIts clear now that the UMNO machinery is wholly behind AAB. This means that during the General Assembly, all effort will be made to make sure the image that UMNO is behind AAB and ignoring Dr. M will painted. I would not be surprise to hear people being warned about making sure the applause level for AAB and the shouting for him is much much higher than for Dr. M.
AAB may be losing support from the public but within UMNO, he is gaining ground and that is what matters most.
While Anonymous' observations may be accurate, is AAB and UMNO risking winning this battle while setting itself up to lose the bigger war - i.e. the next General Election, whenever that might be? As he had pointed out, AAB is losing support from the public, and during the elections, it is the public that votes. Granted, a vote for BN is a vote for AAB. But the loss of support for AAB may also translate to the public's loss of confidence in BN itself.
ReplyDeleteJust Walski's observation/opinion...
Pak Lah just do not have the balls. Well it may seemed that they have scared off UMNO members from voicing support for Pak Lah, the feeling at the ground towards Pak Lah is not permanent and all it takes is some few maverick to let loose and the real support for Tun will survive.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, as anonymous says, if it is true, Pak Lah is not reading the game agst Tun well becasue if public opinion agst him dip so far down, he will have to quit or risk ruining his reputation from a 90% support to barely a majority.
If he does that, he will be stated in history as the man who ruin UMNO.
I would rather say it is a case of History Is Written By The Victors.
ReplyDeleteDr. M probably senses that his Legacy is now hanging by a thread. He can, of course, try to sponsor an UMNO Brezhnev in hopes of throwing out Pak Lah. Or he could be preempted by Pak Lah with a Secret Speech stunt ala Krushchev. The former, I believe he has given up as almost impossible and the latter, a highly likely scenario, given the fact a lot of UMNO sycopants are falling over themselves just to show their, erm, much disputed and volatile loyalty to the Leadership.
However, I being anti Dr. M, must say that this is actually a win-win situation for all parties. Dr. M gets venerated as a Hero this coming November, with not so much as a whisper as to his shennanigans since June last year. Hell, before this year is over, by virtue of spin-doctoring courtesy of Khir Toyo, most Malaysians would have forgotten he even agitated in the first place! They might even blame it all on a certain ethnic group (Cold, man. Real cold!) or a defunct ideology (Cmon, take a guess!) dating back from the Cold War.
Ah, nothing like Propaganda and Pass The Buck in order to get through a day in November at PWTC.
As for Pak Lah, he gets to concentrate on his job as Prime Minister, and of course be seen by UMNO members as being benevolent to Dr. M, and gets hammered on a daily basis by Ktemoc and RPK in the process. Oh well, I did say it was a win-win situation!