Ku Li: one party leaving BN soon

From the Star Online - Ku Li: A BN party will leave soon:

MENTAKAB: A Barisan Nasional component party will leave the coalition before the end of the month, says Gua Musang MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.

However, the former finance minister did not name the party.

“I received news that one party will leave the BN before the end of the month,” Bernama quoted him as saying when attending a gathering of Umno branches in Pahang.

Currently, BN component parties are top dog UMNO, sai lol MCA, tambi MIC [these 3 being Tunku Abdul Rahman’s original Perikatan or Alliance Party], Gerakan, PPP and over in Sabah and Sarawak, Persaka, SUPP, SAPP, PBS, LDP, PBRS, United Pasokmomogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation and Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party

So if any of the Sabah and Sarawak parties leaves, provided it brings along some wang hantaran (betrothal gift) in the form of federal MPs, the frog hunter would be happy. If the party doesn’t have any federal rep, he’ll be more subdued and bite his lips but will still enjoy a psychological win against UMNO (a sort of “better open up for me before it’s too late”).

I rule out the MCA and MIC straightaway –even though they play shameful (or should it be 'shamelessly') subordinate roles to UMNO, they are too deep in it with Taiko. But I am not ruling out any splintering as one bloke by the name of Lim Keng Yaik once did that to the MCA.

The Gerakan has been a bum boy for UMNO for eons, probably with its downfall commencing since Dr Lim Chong Eu lost control of the party to the Perak mob ;-) (just my Penang lang's prejudice).

Given recent events, where current party president Koh Tsu Koon was initially seen to be fairly tolerant of some Gerakan people (Lee Kah Choon and Tan Kee Kwong) taking up civil service (not political) jobs under the Penang and Selangor state governments, but subsequently acted atypically tough when DPM Najib frowned on any ‘sleeping with the enemy’, Koh continues in the lowest tradition of the Gerakan Party, still the yes-man to UMNO, probably much to the chagrin of my blogging mate, Dr Darren Hsu, a Gerakan member.

Darren, while not advocating that Gerakan leaves the BN, did appeal to the party to have some spine in standing up to UMNO. Read Darren’s great letter to Malaysiakini titled Gerakan, do it now, stand up to Umno where revealed:

However, in practice, one party is above all others, and that is Umno. Umno extends hegemony over all the others so much so a former president of Gerakan, in a recent interview, said that all the component parties are like ‘beggars’. Coming from the mouth of a former president of a component party and a former minister for over two decades, this cannot be wrong even though the grassroots of the component parties were never told of this before.

What was often told to the grassroots by leaders of these parties was that the leaders of these parties are ‘fighting very hard’ at BN council meetings or the cabinet, but nothing was said of the ‘begging’ inside BN council meetings or in the cabinet. Grassroots were also often told that all component parties are basically equal. [...]

... stand up to Umno and tell them to mind their own business. Stand up to them and say Gerakan is truly for the people and supports whatever is good for the people. It will not take action against members working for the benefit of the people. Only by standing up to Umno and showing the stuff that Gerakan is made of will the perception that a vote for Gerakan is a vote for Umno be changed. .

Poor Darren, he might as well piss into the wind.

Koh TK should remember that even though UMNO is the primus inter pares (first among equals) in the BN, the operative word in a coalition, any coalition, should be ‘equals’.

Shamefully some way along the life of the coalition, the MCA, MIC and Gerakan have all forgotten that they should be ‘partners’ in the BN, junior as they might be but still equal partners and not sycophantic obsequious serfs to their UMNO liege lord, they willingly abdicate their independent party status and surrender their dignity to become second class sub-branches of UMNO.

The worst of the lot has to be Gerakan in the person of Koh TK. Once I called him by a certain title to depict his subservient cringe but as I have promised not to refer to him by that again, I won’t ;-)

If Gerakan had wanted to leave the BN, it could have use the Lee Kah Choon and Tan Kee Kwong issues as a dignified excuse to leave with heads held high. Alas, it's just a party without the necessary spine to buck UMNO let alone leave the BN.

So that leaves us with the PPP, once a great party which has gradually diminished into a political ikan bilis to be invariably swallowed up by the sharks in the BN.

On top of this, and probably becase of it, it suffered the ultimate indignity of being publicly humiliated by the Malacca CM, Ali Rustam last year.

Yes, in October last year Malaysiakini reported that the PPP invited Ali Rustam as its guest of honour to officially open its annual general assembly which was held in Malacca.

Ali Rustam forgetting the Melayu traditional etiquette to be bersopan-santun (exercising good manners) and halus (refined behaviour), more so when he was the PPP's guest of honour, in his opening address, sneeringly told the PPP to get out of Barisan Nasional now if the party wishes.

He spat out those tsunamic hurtful words while gesturing rudely at the totally gobsmacked and highly humiliated PPP delegates: “PPP can leave BN. All of you can leave. Either today or tomorrow. Why wait until the general election? What’s there to wait for?”

It was an ugly pooarah (f* off) to Kayveas and his PPP members!

I blogged on the sorry saga in The total humiliation of PPP - a lesson for BN parties.

I am not sure how those PPP people could have the face to tolerate that utter humiliation for their party and remain in the BN after that gross insult.

And it took AAB as the chairperson of the BN one whole blooming week to comment on that shameful behaviour by Ali Rustam. Even then, AAB was a disgrace in not reprimanding Ali Rustam.

I blogged on that in PPP a Disgrace - Denied Datukship, Denied Dignity where I wrote (extracts):

… according to Malaysiakini, Mr Slow Motion has finally come out (after an agonizing long and humiliating week for Kayveas and the PPP), no, not to rebuke Ali Rustam for his gross discourtesy as the guest of honour at the PPP Malacca annual assembly (how can, UMNO is never wrong), but to say a wee sweet words at the PPP KL party assembly.

AAB stated: "People don't like to see brothers quarrelling among themselves. They would say the family is not stable. We must always be reasonable and that should be our prime effort. People who fight and oppose us want to see us split.”

My dear PM, the bloke who wanted to see the BN split, by rudely shouting at the PPP to get the hell out of the BN, and mind you, at the PPP Malacca party assembly where he was 'guest of honour', had been none other than the No 1 UMNO man there, Ali Rustam. Ali Rustam's conduct had been against the hallowed institution of Malay traditional charm and courtesy.

Did I say ‘hallowed institution of renowned Malay traditional charm and courtesy’?

Yes, I did, which brings to mind a Malay saying “Biar mati anak, jangan mati adat” (Better your children die than your traditions), indicating uncompromising Malay pride in their traditions, where courtesy has been the hallmark of Malay culture – well, of most Malays because there has been one who had recently displayed his uncouth behaviour, and in that process, disgraced his ethnic culture.

Mind you, instead of rebuking Ali Rustam, AAB instead chided Kayveas for stating (earlier) what has been and still is the truth, that the BN should not descend into a government "of the few, by the few, for the few". Very few people ever agree with Kayveas but in that statement of his, most would, without any hesitation.

If I were a betting man, I would bet on the PPP members finally coming to their senses and leaving the BN. But with Kayveas as the PPP president, I better not ;-)