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Swirling rumours of defection by Umno leaders disgruntled with money politics in divisional polls have also underlined the extent of corruption in the party. Former party leader Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad recently predicted that those using bribery will win in the party elections in March. THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
Membership has its privileges, so went the American Express tagline that set it apart from all the no-fee-pay-as-little-as-you-can credit cards available in the market. Umno members probably feel the same way about their party. A recent protest against the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) investigating corruption in the party and the covert campaign to stop suspended Umno warlord Datuk Ahmad Ismail from facing sedition charges has reinforced the point that Umno members feel they are only subject to party laws. And not laws of the country. Their inherent belief of being above the law, recalls the derisive term opposition leader Lim Kit Siang coined for them — Umnoputras — years ago and almost confirms that they believe corruption is not illegal in politics. Swirling rumours of defection by Umno leaders disgruntled with money politics in divisional polls have also underlined the extent of corruption in the party. Former party leader Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad recently predicted that those using bribery will win in the party elections in March. “We will get an Umno government that is corrupt and without morals,” he wrote in his chedet.cc blog. While most have been silent about the MACC protest, some have slammed it with Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah saying, “This is a gross insult to the community, and to the Constitutional rights Umno was founded to uphold.” “Knowingly or not, the demonstrators conveyed the assumption that corrupt and illegal behaviour in elections is a basic right of Umno. “From there, since we hold that Umno belongs to the Malays and the Malays to Umno, we are a short step from conveying the view that such behaviour is a right of the Malays,” the Gua Musang MP wrote in his blog on Sunday. “Let us not be surprised when an embarrassed Malay community says “no thank you, you don’t represent us,” added the Kelantan prince, one of the few Umno MPs consistently returned to parliament. He echoed the views of another Umno veteran, one-term Pulau Manis assemblyman Datuk Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz, who wrote that the party’s fight against graft must start by cleaning its own stables. “It is a Herculean task. The MACC will full political will is the shovel for the task. Umno will not escape ridicule and disrepute if it does anything that curtails the effectiveness of the MACC,” wrote Ariff in his wildly popular Sakmongkol AK47 blog. “The scourge of Umno is money politics,” he wrote further, adding the issue had been debated in the past 30 years but “Umno has been powerless or even unwilling to stem out money politics”. Slamming the protest against the MACC, Ariff wrote bluntly, “What is more offensive to our collective decency was the open embrace of corruption as a means to secure power and positions. What else can explain their vehement protestations on MACC?” He ended his post titled “The rise of Moneycracy in Umno” with, “I hope this is NOT the new Umno ideology deriving its legitimacy from the hallowed traditions of Umno. Mati Lah Umno macam ini.” Outside Umno, My Sinchew columnist Tay Tian Yan lamented the protest by writing “ For them, frauds and corruption for power and money are justified. Right and wrong could be reversed and there is no difference between black and white”. “They are young and they are having such thoughts, I believe that they are going to bring a greater national disaster when they grow older,” Tay wrote, reflecting a recent Merdeka Centre survey that showed corruption was a major worry among Malaysians. There lies the dichotomy. Umno members are not worried about corruption and are protesting any move to investigate them for the offence while Malaysians in general are against it — be it in the civil service or politics. Umno has a choice. Clean up or go down the road to perdition.
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