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Umno turned 70 recently and celebrated its anniversary with a president who requested that the party return to its founding spirit. They face two by-elections; which they seek to buy again. The purchase price in Sarawak was easier and cheaper, since their countryside did not yet know the real meaning of so-called development and progress. They have never settled to modern life or places; either in their homes or elsewhere.

With the upcoming two by-elections, caused by the same traumatic accident, at least for the families of those dead, the same 70-year-older Umno will allegedly try to buy both these elections. To buy, in my lexicon, means to bribe the local voters with unbudgeted election promises. The opposition in the peninsula should therefore get their act together and sing the same tune from the same score.

The Sarawak elections were a giveaway; thanks to petty bickering amongst leaders of the Pakatan Harapan, or those I call the Malaysian Hope Coalition or My HOPE. These are therefore my three words of advice to the My HOPE Coalition:

  • Get beyond the bickering, and appoint the best candidate in your midst with most potential to win and serve all the constituents. That means first you need to know their real needs and concerns, and then you need to identify a candidate who represents and speaks for those interests.
  • Identify two or three issues of concern which already have traction on the ground and take those arguments to the natural extreme. They could be the Goods and Services Tax (GST), or corrupt leadership of Umno. But, whatever it is, please take it to the ground and make a convincing argument; including, if needed to rope in Dr Mahathir Mohamad or Muhyiddin Yassin if we can fulfil the agenda.
  • Promote a brand new issue and frame it as the newest and greatest cultural challenge of 2020 Malaysia: Against Bribery and Corruption or ABC. The people, I believe, are ready to respond, as there is practically no public service at ground zero in Malaysia that I am aware of, which has not been infected with a culture of corruption.

The time is ripe and the very fact that a deputy minister and a secretary-general died in the same aircraft while on election campaigning is enough to describe the real effects of this culture of corruption. A public servant has no business doing election rounds.

I do not want to say it is God’s judgment, but I am tempted to think that way because I saw one assemblyperson travel to at least 15 villages in five days and take many, many hours of road travel but still lose marginally because of he refused to ‘spend monies to buy the elections’. Of course, the truth is money he did not even have such monies. They are public funds; always.

Corrupt leadership by example

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I was trained in the RMC or the Federation, and then Royal Military College. We became ‘royal’ at our passing-out parade in 1968. Our college motto is: To Serve to Lead. Most of us have focussed our lives on serving more than leading; since the leadership of the nation-state is often defined by political parties and their members.

Recently, I told one of our brightest and best graduates; the time to serve is over, it is now time to lead because the country is like the Titanic headed towards the iceberg and it appears that the captain and followers cannot see the dangers of the iceberg crash.

Therefore I find it absolutely incorrigible that the PM who appears to have found creative ways to further corrupt the heart and soul of Umno through financing of ‘instant projects and buy elections’, and can appear to get away with murder, while the protagonist who engineered such monetary schemes is now fighting to bring down the latter; the anointed captain of the same ship.

Through all of the above, which appears like a ‘Dallas’-type soap opera with all its related intrigue, the current president of this now most corrupt party of the government can say with his mouth that he wants the party to return to its original spirit. If I remember right and from my learned history, Umno was founded by a bunch of teachers with a great vision about the future of this nation-state.

Ever since the greatest political fight for helmsman-ship of Umno between their Numbers 1 and 2 some years ago, and their party was declared shut down by the judge; the Umno Version 2 have never been the same again. It was taken over by Wharton-type MBAs who have structured a scheme of theft of public assets using political manoeuvring but which has also benefitted all those who were part and parcel of these team of Ali Baba and the 40 thieves.

Corruption our No 1 challenge

In 1973, after my first project review and learning experience from visiting three rural states of Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang to see and assess postal distribution of their services, I remember telling my big boss that if we seriously cannot get rid of corruption and pilferage in this nation-state, we will never be able to achieve the 30 percent target for ‘bumiputra’ participation.

Today, we have spent more than 50 percent of all funds ever spent and resources utilised pursuing this dream agenda, and are still struggling to achieve the 30 percent target, after 45 years of the New Economic Policy (NEP). Whose failure is this; if not the federal government’s.

My question therefore is, can we ever achieve it? Given that the goalposts keep changing, and the rich get richer under our current scheme of theft and distribution of largesse, and concurrently the bumiputras of Sabah and Sarawak are still worse off than they were 45 years ago?

The current model of development and progress is completely and well-embedded within a culture of corruption, wherein project managers are allowed to steal through their defined project processes and everyone elects to close one eye on the matter because it is now public policy; allegedly including, I am sorry to say, the auditor-general and the two Houses of Parliament.

How then do we ever know if we get there if we have no objective standards of right and wrong?

If goal posts, and all definitions and measurements can be changed willy-nilly by the PM who is also the finance minister, where then does real accountability and responsibility sit in this one-eyed nation any more? Greed makes all us blind, said Gandhi.

My view is that we should simply declare that we have failed at the most critical level, that of real development, its definitions and measurements, and simple restate a NEW common agenda to move towards a need-based development model and, to abandon the NEP and all its false pretences which is the cause and source of all this bribery and corruption today.

Under this newer model we can identify, measure and help all those who do not have basic amenities at their disposal, and then let us focus on helping their children with a world class quality of education for finding and defining their goals and purposes in life. May God bless Malaysia in moving in this direction.