Umno General Assembly and it’s objectives

In a matter of hours, the much anticipated Umno General Assembly will commence. It will be a closed door affair this time; reverting to the normal day to day proceedings of an ‘ordinary political party’ holding its Annual General Meeting.

In 2006, the pompous Umno decided to show its strength and initiated a live telecast program of its AGM to the wordwide audience.

Whose idea was it?  We could only speculate as the audience was served with relentless waves of stupid antics coming out from the speeches made.

How the mighty had fallen soon afterwards.

This AGM will be a momentous one indeed. The unpopular PM is being ousted by his own people in the party. Only twice in history had we seen this occasion. If he had his way, Pak Lah would have stayed on beyond 2013.

Umno members never did forgive him for the lost of so many grounds Umno had before the 2008 general election.

This General Assembly will be the starting point of a rejuvenated Umno. An election to elect leaders in the leadership of Umno. All in the blogosphere had put forth their views on ways to reinvent and rebrand Umno. We have dissected the views, discussed them, deliberated on the critical matters and finally concluded that Umno needs to change its ways or forever be doomed in history books.

I have nothing more to add here except that the leaders, upon appointed to their respective perch in the Umno hierarchy, must have set goals and objectives.

The elected leaders – from the lowly AJK Cawangan to the national Exco members and also the next supreme council members must be given KPIs or set targets for them to administer once they had gained that position.

Targets can be varied. For Ketua Bahagian, the targets may be as simple as:

1) Getting 2,000 new members each year. If there are 192 Bahagian nationwide, how many new members Umno will have by the next Umno elections?

2) Organising 12 community / social activities in each Bahagian each year. I am stressing ‘community / social activities’ as oppose to holiday trips organised for cronies. For far too long funds received from Umno HQ to each Bahagian were squandered by Ketua Bahagian for their ‘annual holiday trips’.

3) Sourcing out own funds to finance those activities for the people.

The above are only examples. The quality of the leaders will be measured in the next three years. Those who did not perform, will not be elected next time around.

Without setting such basic target for each of their leaders, Umno will flounder in the end.

But targets must also be the strategically correct ones. Where Umno will gain benefit out of them should they are implemented collectively.

Let us look at Pak Lah’s target when he was the Prime Minister. He once said in an interview in Sin Chew daily;

“UMNO has forgotten that the Malays have changed their own thinking and perspectives. It has forgotten that the Malays have changed their value system. The Malays are no longer what they used to be. They unreservedly express themselves. They even wave the DAP flags!”

Abdullah said during an exclusive interview with Sin Chew Daily at his private residence in Kuala Lumpur that during his five-year tenure as the prime minister, he has managed to change the mentality of the Malays.

He said young Malays believe they can stand on their own feet, and this is the major value that has changed the young Malays today.

“Young Malays feel that they need the opportunities, so they begin talking about DAP and PKR. They believe they have better opportunities there.”

In a larger context, there is nothing wrong with this statement. But when a sitting Umno President claimed that he had managed to change the mindset of the Malays so that they now had moved away from Umno and had decisively and openly supporting DAP and PKR…

Well, what does that tell you? Your Umno President even claimed that it is one of his great achievements! In other words, Pak Lah has no qualms if the Malays are no longer supporting Umno. What kind of logic is this?

Wrong target Mr. President. It became totally mindnumbing when he further stated; 

On the admission by former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad that he had failed to change the mentality and attitude of the Malays, Abdullah said decisively, “I can change the Malays!”

Change them to become what may I ask? More progressive and dynamic? Or did the Malays regress themselves and become slaves to corruption under his watch? Worse, some even became apologists and less proud of their rich history. That interview merely showed Pak Lah’s character of pompous piety.

Datuk Seri Najib must not repeat the same mistake.

One of the first thing he needs to do is to be magnanimous. He, as the new President, must not repeat the lack of respect shown to an outgoing President.

Tunku Abdul Rahman lamented on the lack of respect Umno members had shown the minute he handed over the presidency to Tun Abdul Razak in 1970. He penned down his thoughts below:

On this day in September 1970, I tendered my resignation as Prime Minister after 20 years’ service. I resolved to step down in favour of Tun Abdul Razak who had been my deputy all those years and was loosing his hair. I had already accepted the post of Secretary General of the IOC and was ready to leave for Jeddah…

For the last 20 years, I have received support from all the members and undivided loyalty from everyone, for which I am truly grateful. With this support, we have been able to win the respect of all Malaysians and work together with them as one people and we have been able to face the communist insurrection and Soekarno’s confrontation and emerge victorious. Our success was undoubtedly due to God’s goodness and the loyal and solid support of the people of Malaya and Malaysia.

So keep Umno united and strong! And I repeat, if there is anything which is considered unsatisfactory, bring it up at the general assembly, “Umno menjadi harapan dan tumpuan bangsa kita Melayu”.

The Supreme Council then moved a resolution that the assembly take a vote of thanks and appreciation for the services rendered by me for 20 years, faithfully building up Umno to the strength it now enjoys as the people’s party, the biggest and the strongest in the land,

Another resolution was moved to congratulate me on my appointment as secretary general of the Islamic Secretariat.

After this (I recall with painful memory), I left the assembly with a few old faithfuls who accompanied me to the car, but the rest of the assembly continued with their deliberations without even a break of a few minutes to bid me farewell.

Well, as I have always said, this is the way of a man; they can be very fickle.  

Proper decorum must be maintained. Reverence to the predecessor is a must. 

Akhir sekali, dengan nama Allah Yang Maha Pemurah Lagi Maha Pengasih, saya mengesyorkan kepimpinan seperti yang tertera di bawah kepada para perwakilan semua:

Presiden : Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Tun Razak

Timbalan Presiden : Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin

Naib Naib Presiden : Datuk Rais Yatim, Datuk Shafie Afdal, Datuk Hishamuddin Hussein

Ketua Pemuda : Datuk Mukhriz Tun Mahathir

Jawatan Exco Pemuda : Tengku Azman Bin Tengku Zainal Abidin (calon nombor 6), Akhramsyah Muammar Ubaidah Sanusi (calon nombor 18), Dr. Novandri Hasan Basri (calon nombor 8).

Selamat bersidang Umno!

Para panglima mesti berguru,
Empat perkara kata penghulu;
Pertama akal kedua ilmu,
Ketiga iman keempat malu.

Mengerjakan kerja janganlah malas,
Zahir dan batin janganlah culas,
Jernihkan hati hendaklah ikhlas,
Seperti air di dalam gelas.

Nasihat ayahanda anakanda fikirkan,
Keliru syaitan anakanda jagakan,
Orang berakal anakanda hampirkan,
Orang jahat anakanda jauhkan.

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Addendum

1) I must apologise to all my dear readers for my inability to frequently churn out new articles. Recent events had compelled me to spend less time on blogging and more time on other matters (overseas and some community works). Will be back soon with more articles (hopefully) and more interactive participation in the commentary section. Thank you very much.

Update 1.30am

2) Follow Datuk Najib’s full speech just now here. Versi Melayu – di sini.

3) Datuk Najib made a very subtle hint that he is endorsing Datuk Mukhriz as the Youth chief here.