COMMENT Umno’s ‘jaguh kampung’ (village champion), Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, got it all wrong about people’s support for Umno.

In the last general election, it was clear that despite all the talks about 1Malaysia, even without the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scam, Umno and the entire Barisan Nasional (BN) only received 47 percent of the people’s support.

Most of these were probably from East Malaysia. In the peninsula, most Malaysians have ditched BN. Where Umno had held the seat for nearly half a century, for example, Paya Jeras, the seat went to a Pakatan Rakyat component party.

When Ti Lian Ker spoke up against the ‘jaguh kampung’ in Umno, one person who should not even have spoken up is Nazri himself. He appears to support people like Jamal Mohd Yunos, a divisional leader who distributed some RM600,000 to Umno branch leaders.

Ti was correct in calling Umno a jaguh kampung party because people like Nazri are not condemning such dirty politics played by one of its divisional leaders, but supporting it. At least former minister Rais Yatim has urged disciplinary actions to be taken against Jamal.

Umno’s failure is its inability to deal with the unpopular politics played by its jaguh kampung.

It is people like Nazri who cannot tell between black and white. Even though a number of Umno members and leaders are making an exit from Umno, all he can say is that one these veterans is a “frustrated taxi driver”.

If, after spending so many years leading a division, the so-called Umno veteran has to work as a taxi driver, who is really benefitting from the veteran’s years of sacrifice? Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak or Nazri?

At least Ti was able to recognise the tides. Most Chinese have already abandoned BN since the last general election because of Umno’s dirty politics. Most of us could see that even within BN, there was no fair distribution of seats.

MCA, MIC and Gerakan, not to mention the other small fry, were given seats that Umno could not win. When the people gave BN the boot, all that Umno can shout about is MCA’s inability to garner support.

When enough is enough

Like the case of PAS under the leadership of its president, Abdul Hadi Awang, there is no reciprocity within Umno.

While it is the grassroots that help prop up leaders, the leaders no longer give a darn about their sacrifices. What is worse is when leaders from Sabah and Sarawak are being appointed to cabinet positions, but they allegedly know nothing about the various ministries that they helm.

Therefore, their only job now is to defend Najib against criticisms resulting from the open can of worms in the 1MDB scam.

Leaders like Mohd Noh Omar are appointed to cabinet positions. In the first place, Mohd Noh should not have even suggested to allow developers to provide loans to housebuyers without carefully studying the proposal. I wonder if his intention was to create more licences so that along with these licences came more opportunities.

The proposal of allowing developers to provide housing loans is synonymous with allowing the big boys to make money from both the property development as well as the banking industry. This would effectively kill the banking industry.

Mohd Noh should never have been made a full cabinet in the first place, firstly for having lost Selangor to Pakatan Harapan, and secondly for the lack of calibre to lead an important ministry like housing.

If anything, I would say he is the same calibre as his strong supporter Jamal of Sungai Besar and allegedly a persistent ‘troublemaker’ in the political scene in Malaysia.

Every time that Bersih announces a peaceful demonstration, Jamal would come out with a counter assembly. Previously, the gap was filled by Perkasa’s Ibrahim Ali, in the name of being a non-governmental organisation, but these are all politicians with what I call an Umno mindset.

So, do you think I would vote for MCA? It is over my dead body. Even if you put a cat to stand for Pakatan Harapan, I would not only vote for the cat, but will give the ‘dacing’ the boot.

STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008.