Politics, like any other system of belief, requires a codified structure and hierarchy to smoothen the journey forward. This is similar to religions which require for the adherence to god or/and its messenger while companies placing authoritative power in the hands of the chairperson or CEO/board.

This then begs the question, when does allegiance become a liability which warrants for disobedience or a coordinated rebellion? On a comparative level, is blind allegiance a necessary evil in politics?

Political parties owe a duty to the country first above anything else. The epicentre of power lies in the hands of the people, not in the hand of members of a specific political party. YB Khairy Jamaluddin, the Youth chief of Umno, noted this in his speech at the Umno general assembly that over reliance on the purported 3-million Umno members would be insufficient to win the general election as Malaysia is not only governed by Umno members.

We hear the same rhetoric coming from opposition MPs like YB Rafizi Ramli and YB Lim Kit Siang. When a political party acts against the interest of the nation, it becomes the members’ moral duty to speak up on behalf of the nation. A party is a mere subset of the nation. There can be a Malaysia without these respective political parties, but there can never be an ‘Umno’ without Malaysia.

It baffles me to see blind allegiance especially among Umno members. When corruption becomes a party norm which is diametrically opposed to the overall functioning of the state, there are still ardent party supporters who defend the party and their leaders. There are even those who go as far as labelling their president as “god-sent” and “Pahlawan Bugis”.

This blind allegiance is a cancerous tumor which slowly kills the party due to the growing tolerance to intolerable issues like corruption and bad governance. When party members accept corrupt practices for the ‘party’s cause’, this sets a damaging precedent for the future of the party. It effectively sends a signal to the future generation that ‘the ends justify the means’, even if it comes at the expense of the country.

When there are those from the inside who would like to challenge the corrupt power structures, it becomes implausible as these insiders will have to go against the norm set by the precedent, while overcoming the army of loyalists who will bark whenever an instruction is given.

Creating damaging precedents

As one senior ex-member of Umno noted that the chief minister of Sabah defended Najib by stating that it is “common practice” to amass wealth in one’s personal account in preparation for elections. This is unsurprising as the chief minister of Sabah is also alleged to have done the same thing. Loyalty creates damaging precedents and increases tolerance, slowly but surely, to intolerable practices.

It’s therefore critical to prioritise the nation’s cause over anything else. It was patriotic for Republican leaders like John McCain to withdraw support from their party’s pick for president who indirectly promised to burn the moral fabric of unity in America. It was noble for Muhyiddin Yassin and the team for speaking up against Najib Abdul Razak who allegedly assisted in the misappropriation of the rakyat’s money.

If there comes a point in time where Muhyiddin commits a criminal offence, it also becomes the moral duty of his new party members to speak up against him. This culture of openness and accountability must be sowed in early to solidify good governance within the party.

If blind allegiance becomes the default rule of party governance, this will inevitably create a top-down system of administration which favours the political elites at the expense of the grassroots. When a party instruction is given out form political elites, it becomes mandatory to carry them out and disobedience is seen to be a betrayal despite its merits.

When YB Annuar Musa, the newly-minted information chief of Umno, ordained that Umno members should stop asking questions about the 1MDB crisis and obey their president’s orders, his words cannot be challenged as blind allegiance has been ingrained in the party structures.

This unfortunately creates a self-contained echo chamber of praises and rose-tinted windows which misdirect the top elites. Bad is seen as good while good is seen as awesome. The information-exchange becomes unreliable. This again, slowly but surely kills the party and the country.

Blind allegiance might work for football fans or Selena Gomez fans, but when it comes to politics, the epicentre of power and change, ultimate scrutiny and scepticism must be made a norm as every decision may be a matter of life and death. A mistake may lead to billions lost. Negligence may lead to the future generation shouldering the burden made by the present.

As a Malaysian, Malaysia comes first over any leader or party. Malaysia is the end goal, not the means to achieve one’s end goal.

SYED SADDIQ SYED ABDUL RAHMAN is a part-time lecturer at Universiti Islam Antarabangsa (UIA) Malaysia and is Asia’s best debater, winning the United Asia Debate Championship in May 2015.