It was rather perplexing to read Adlin's letter, Rejuvenate Umno with Youth. O­n o­ne hand we are constantly told that Umno is very strong.

On the other hand, there are also people who say that Umno needs rejuvenation with youth.

The writer does not qualify what type of rejuvenation he is propounding. He seems to be satisfied by saying that Umno old guards should be dropped and replaced by younger leaders. But the disease Umno has inflicted upon itself is not an age problem, it is a chronic moral problem.

The general perception of present day Umno among fair-minded and well-informed people is that the party has become morally decadent.

This is manifested through allegations of massive corruption, destructive money politics, conspiracies orchestrated o­n lies and half-truths, and not forgetting the kind of ego trip that characterises its leadership.

These problems have their root in the baser nature of human beings, and if ever Umno wants to extricate itself from the moral dross it has acquired, the rejuvenation must be a moral o­ne. But morality is an offspring of a virtuous life which can o­nly be inculcated with true religious teachings.

Does Umno have the spirit to exculpate itself from the corrupt culture within its body politic? Far from it, no matter what it does to redress this problem it will be impossible to destroy the millions of viruses of corruption that have found a permanent niche in Umno.

The best it can do is to keep an autocratic regime which does not allow a level playing ground for those who oppose Umno, and that is what you can see now!

Every threat, every critic of Umno is subtly identified, oppressed, threatened and persecuted, giving no chance for seeds of rejuvenation to be sown in the minds and the hearts of people.

Umno supporters can yell for rejuvenation but there is hardly any fertile ground from which rejuvenation can spring forth.

If this is the scenario, then the sense of destiny for Umno is obscure. It will suffer the same fate of many political parties that started of with heroism but ended up afflicted with moral decadence and corruption.