UMNO No 2 race - when it rains it pours!

Malaysiakini has been kept busy with headlines like Ku Li: ROS can stop Umno polls and Tensions rise between No 1, No 2 camps.

Both referred to UMNO’s internal jostling for the No 2 position (and from there to No 1) where favourite Ali Rustam was threatened with charges of money-politics unless he withdrew from the UMNO deputy presidential race.

He had to!

One of the arguments against Ali Rustam has been that he will be a monumental disaster as a future DPM because he is not fluent in English.

It also doesn’t help that Ali Rustam is in AAB’s camp while one of the other candidates, Muhyiddin Yassin, is Najib’s preferred deputy.

The latest gossip is that the frustrated and angry Ali Rustam’s camp will throw their support behind ‘I can’t speak/read English’ Muhammadx2 Taib.

Of the three contenders, I reckon the double-Muhammad will be the Godzilla of all political disasters.

But let's return to Ali of Malacca.

I don’t have any sympathy for Ali Rustam, and neither does Kayveas of PPP wakakaka.

Ali Rustam was the man, who as ‘guest of honour’ at the PPP annual general assembly in Malacca in October 2007, sneeringly told the PPP to get out of Barisan Nasional if the party wishes.

Yes, as PPP's 'guest of honour' at the party's most important annual event!

Ali 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.

Ali Rustam had been the man who completely forgot about the traditional etiquette of the Malays to be bersopan-santun (exercising good manners) and berhalus (showing refined behaviour), more so when he was afterall the PPP's guest of honour.

Apart from wondering how those PPP people could have the face (and certainly the thick hide) to swallow that humongous insult and utter humiliation, and remain like dumb-struck donkeys in the BN, we have come to learn that Ali Rustam had not been a nice person at all.

AAB was an equal a$$h*le because it took 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.

So, on behalf of those long suffering but thick hide and shamelessly mute PPP members I have been delighted when Ali Rustam fell on his own political sword.

Pity UMNO is too scared to remove him as CM Malacca as well – at least that would have stopped the Malacca State sausage-factory from churning out such embarrassing numbers of Datukship awards that would have staggered even the Zimbabwean government and turned them green with envy.

BTW, Jeanne Abdullah has a Malaccan Datukship as well.

But the manoeuvre to oust Ali has brought on a far more frightening prospect, where now Malaysia’s potentially future DPM and (if Najib were to die a premature death like his dad) potentially future PM could well be a man whose name has been etched in red inked ignominy in the files of Australian Immigration.

… because Malaysiakini tells us today that, following the backlash against Muhyiddin Yassin’s candidature, double-Muhammad is now (frighteningly) the favourite in the UMNO deputy presidential race, and that the 'Potential victor' Muhd Taib is not pulling out.

When it rains it f* pours!