Putrajaya 2, Terengganu 1

Could it be possible that AAB has finally shown some backbone?

Post election he has been perceived by some royalty as weak, indecisive and even apathetic. So, maybe they thought they might just claw back some of their royal prerogatives lost during the Mahathir days. Can you imagine them doing this when Mahathir was around?

Now the Perlis situation was masked by the fact of an unpopular Shahidan Kassim who was already slated for the ‘outer’ even prior to the election. Because of UMNO HQ's lack of enthusiastic support for Shahidan, with the Perlis royal prerogative ruling the day, it might have lent an incorrect impression that royalty would win in any tussle with an UMNO President still bleeding from and licking his election wounds.

We need to remember that AAB's promise to Shahidan of the MB position was a last minute pre-election compromise worked out hastily to avoid intra party factional fighting from distracting from the election. Now that the election has been completed, I suppose AAB was hardly likely to put in much effort to rescue him from local UMNO manoeuvres. Hmmm, maybe there were even the wink, wink, nudge, nudge from UMNO HQ. I won't put this beyond the Machiavellian politics of UMNO.

But it’s a different story with the Terengganu MB saga. When the Terengganu palace went for broke with the MB issue, opting for Kijal assemblyperson Ahmad Said against an UMNO selected Jusoh, the 23 BN state representatives (ADUNs) voiced their intentions to boycott the ceremony.

The palace decided to take the deadlock to the edge by officially issuing an appointment letter to Ahmad Said. But none of the 23 UMNO state reps was present at the ceremony, sticking to their earlier declarations.

Then, to thumb their ordinary noses at the royal person, Malaysiakini tells us that the state’s party leadership (sure AAB not involved?) sacked Ahmad from UMNO in a meeting last night – I take it poor Ahmad Said didn’t attend the meeting.

Their reason was that he ignored the party leadership’s directive not to take up the MB post.

However Malaysiakini reported in Crisis deepens in Terengganu that Ahmad Said has the support of the seven out of eight Terengganu UMNO divisions grassroots UMNO leaders and members.

Can that be so, when all 23 ADUNs do not support him, and indeed have sacked him a la Anwar Ibrahim? One question from kaytee, aren’t most of the UMNO State ADUNs divisional or branch leaders themselves?

I want to see what happens next because we are now in uncharted territory ;-)

But quick, I spied a golden opportunity for the de facto leader. Please let him know that there is now a chance for him to recruit Ahmad Said, possibly together with seven out of the eight Terengganu UMNO divisions. It will be an achievement that will make Gurun green with envy ;-).

And best of all, with Ahmad Said, it won't be a grubby defection because that bloke is now an independent ADUN. Yes, I know he's not of much use to Anwar in a federal situation but hey, great fortunes have been, are and will be built on the philosophy of "Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean, and the pleasant land (of the PKR)" - with apologies to J Carney.


Related:
Royalty threatens constitutional crisis?