Our best PM?

TMI - Ku Li willing to work with Dr Mahathir or anyone for betterment of country

Recently I mentioned that Tengku Razaleigh has been probably the best PM we never had BUT only because he was never the PM, wakakaka.

Once I admired him as a potential PM waiting patiently in the wings and had hope he would fulfill our hopes of having him lead the country politically, but after years of such hopes and ALSO waiting, I gave up on him.

Yes, I tire of his over-caution, not daring to take a step forward when he was needed most (eg. either to challenge for the top UMNO post or to join Pakatan to be the coaliiton's head).

It eventually dawned on me that Ku Li probably wants the PM chair gift wrapped and handed over to him on a silver platter before he dares to voice his wish to be PM.

Ku Li has many admirers. In 2010, Bakri Musa wrote an article titled ‘Salvaging Najib’ which then sounded to me like ‘Savaging Najib’ wakakaka.

Bakri is a very erudite writer who writes from his home in the USA, but alas one who broke the hearts of many Chinese Malaysians including mine.

For such an intelligent and supposedly 'globally exposed' person he had been shamefully biased in his dislike of Chinese, and unforgivably careless and ignorant in attributing their worst points (yes, some Chinese have awful characteristics, habits and mannerisms) incorrectly and ignorantly to Confucian ethics and their ethnic culture and characteristics, showing his abysmal knowledge of Confucian philosophy, ethics, teachings and practices.

Be that as it had been, I see the good points in him as a writer and thus appreciated and still do many of his articles, except when he made those ignorantly indiscriminate accusations against Chinese, not unlike the Chinese saying of sweeping every Chinaman down with his long bamboo pole.

As to be expected for the Malay-centric intellectual, Bakri's articles in the main focused on Malays and Malay issues, and most certainly we can learn from them.

From my regular reading of his articles, I gather the impression (and I believe I’m reasonably quite correct on this) that his political-leadership idols have been Tun Razak, Tun Dr Ismail, Tun Ghazalie Shafie and Tengku Razaleigh (Ku Li), the Malay political giants, sadly with only Ku Li left.

At one time (long ago) I noted that he included Tun Dr Mahathir but subsequently he consigned the doctor to the group that he (Bakri) possibly might have been embarrassed of, wakakaka.

To cut to the chase, in 2010 he drew the top UMNO team of Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Razak as a model for Najib to emulate, a partnership of the charismatic but intellectual lightweight Tunku and his deputy, the intellectual giant and visionary Razak.

To Bakri, Najib is like Tunku, not an intellectual giant but easy-going and perhaps even hedonistic to an extent, who needs an intellectual deputy in the mode of his late dad, Tun Razak, as a partner to shore up the substance of UMNO top partnership.

I’m not too sure about Tun Razak being an intellectual - Dr Ismail, Ghazali Shafie, Dr Mahathir, Musa Hitam certainly, but Razak ...? No, I respectfully disagree.

But Tun Razak had street-wise cunning, certainly ruthlessness, and leadership qualities but then we are talking about a period when the body politics for the Malays were fairly simple and uncomplicated.

Immediately after Independence there weren't many highly educated Malays as there are today, with only some UMNO leaders and public servants the few exceptions. Also, money-politics then weren't as vigorous, vicious and vile as it is today.

Then there were of course the well educated young Turks like Dr Mahathir, Ku Li, Musa Hitam and civil servant Ghazali Shafie etc but they were precisely what they were, young Turks and not yet in the top leadership. Tun Razak’s strength was in recruiting them for grooming as future UMNO leaders.

Some ministers in Tunku’s cabinet had very basic educational qualifications but surprisingly they were in the main quite good leaders (being old-fashion street smart with a feel for the rakyat), in contrast to today’s UMNO so-called leaders where many are PhD holders but utterly f*-up politicians whose only hold on power, popularity and claimed persona have been based on pathetic pariah provocative Perkasa-ish polemics and policies.

Naturally in the intellectual department, Bakri deemed Najib’s top team partner, Muhyiddin, not up to scratch and should be dumped or sidelined into a cushy job with a golden handshake. And if you recall, very recently Dr M had refused to endorse Muhyiddin as a possible replacement for Najib, wakakaka.

Bakri had then toyed with the idea of a younger chap as a new partner for Najib, like Khairy Jamaluddin (which choice initially surprised me) but then only briefly before he dismissed the young buck for the excessive baggage acquired during his father-in-law's time.

Hmmm, I wonder whether that was the religious curse of sins of the father-in-law? Wakakaka.

This of course led Bakri to what he really wanted to propose (in 2010) in the first place, namely his idol Ku Li as Najib’s new DPM. This was hardly surprising as Bakri had previously proposed Ku Li to be AAB’s DPM.

Then I had mucho doubts that Najib would have wanted Ku Li for a variety of reasons, chief among which would be Ku Li as a ‘clear & present danger’ to him, becoming an inevitable challenger for his position as PM.

Besides, Ku Li was hardly likely to tolerate having young chico Najib as a boss, who was probably in diapers when he (Ku Li) was already in the UMNO top leadership.

Okay, I exaggerate a bit on the 'diapers' bit but the contrast in their respective seniority and experience was far too embarrassing (and even humiliating) for Ku Li to serve as deputy to a budak kecil like Najib for too long. Remember that top leaders have monstrously humongous egos.

Interestingly, I wonder what with Tun Razak’s coup d’etat against Tunku soon after May 13, when he betrayed and humiliated Tunku (there were other humiliations of Tunku subsequently), showing the vaunted loyalty of Malays in general and UMNO in particular were left by the wayside, whether the sins of the father have finally visited the son?

Today Tun Razak’s son faces imminent threats from every which direction - Mahathir, Muhyiddin, and of course now the man himself, Ku Li.

So I ask again: Have the sins of the father (Razak) been visited upon his son Najib? Well, they say history repeats itself!

And what has TMI informed us today? That Umno veteran Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah today said he is willing to work with former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad or anyone else to champion any cause.

Forget about his 'anyone else', but what "champion[ing of] any cause" together with Dr M does Ku Li has in mind?

OK, so he has played coy to the reporters, stating "Working with Tun Mahathir or even anyone else is not a problem. But to question the prime minister, that is a different matter, it cannot be mixed."

Does he expect us to believe after a 19-year silence about working with Dr M (since Semangat 46 tutup kedai in 1996) he suddenly, that is today, has an inexplicable burning desire to work together with an already retired Dr M, and which has nothing to do with replacing Najib?

Yesirree, as we can see, Ku Li hasn't changed at all, still cautiously playing his cards so closed to himself that he himself might not be able to read them, wakakaka.

Quite frankly I don't think I want such a person to be PM. Let us keep him as a myth, that he is the best PM we never had, wakakaka.