Speaking at the third Umno Veteran Council general assembly, Muhyiddin Yassin has announced the impending launch of an ‘Umno the People’s Champion’ campaign “for Umno to get closer to the people”. A proposition that has me wondering how much more up close and personal the people can bear to let Umno get.

After all, this is the party that had its hands in the people’s pockets, its police at the people’s throats and its media pulling the wool over the people’s eyes for two generations or more. So I fancy that most Malaysians with half a brain would prefer Umno to get lost rather than creep even closer to them.

Umno the People’s Champion?

Certainly Umno’s the champ at treating the people like chumps. As we’ve been reminded recently, the Umno/BN regime has cheated the rakyat to the tune of somewhere between RM100 billion and US$100 billion over the past 20 years, depending whether you accept the arithmetic of former Asian Wall Street Journal editor Barry Wain or Morgan Stanley economist Daniel Lian.