LETTER | By now the euphoria surrounding Pakatan Harapan’s historic win in the polls has died down. Markets have perhaps priced in this regime change.

Umno is slowly beginning to get used to being the opposition. Having over 50 seats in parliament, they remain very much relevant and is the most dominant single party.

In the foreseeable future, they are arguably Malaysia’s only hope of sustaining a healthy two-party democracy (ironic, I know).

We are now seeing disturbing trends from pro-democracy Harapan supporters who are pushing for the complete annihilation of Umno for all of their alleged excesses.

Other groups are calling for moderate, liberal Malay Muslims to rally behind Harapan in an effort to neutralise the purported UMNO-PAS alliance – which could potentially result in a far-right extremist opposition alliance as the next democratic choice Malaysians would have.

While I can empathise with them, I cannot fully agree with that notion. To me, above and beyond winning the next elections, Malaysians must go beyond partisan lines and strongly demand for a fresh leadership change in Umno.

These leaders must be free of legitimate scandals and must not carry the same level of arrogance we saw in the previous lineups – and we must do this in the name of solidifying the democratic call of having a strong and viable opposition alliance.

Leaders like Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Nazri Abdul Aziz, Bung Moktar Radin, Hishammuddin Hussein, as well as contenders like Jamal Md Yunos and the infamous blogger ‘Papagomo’ must be booted out at get-go.

For the sake of a better Malaysia, Umno needs to undergo significant reformation and not fall trap to the ‘two Es’.

Retaining the same leaders and same style will lead them to ‘extinction’, and partnering up with PAS will potentially push them to ‘extremism’. Both these outcomes – though it may possibly still result in them losing in the elections – are unfavourable to a democratic Malaysia, and should not be the basis of any future governments coming into power.

In order to achieve this, Umno needs a strong, capable, and potentially young leader. It is understandable for Umno to retain some level of feudalism within its ranks, hence it could be difficult to accept a younger leader like Khairy Jamaluddin, but I do feel that is exactly what they need.

The next-best leaders are Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Mustapa Mohamed, who lacks the charisma and energy that Khairy has, but qualifies in political experience and capability of handling the feudalistic nature of the grassroots.

Yes, one might argue that these three leaders did not fall in the rakyat’s good books for their seemingly “deafening” silence over the 1MDB issue; but the political arena is a choice between the lesser of two evils.

And within the Umno fold, these three are undoubtedly the best that can be put forth for a democratic Malaysia.

At the end of the day, most Malaysians want viable options. We are a peace-loving, democratic, multi-racial society.

Umno needs to transcend their comfort zone and resist the temptation to court PAS and become a single race-single religion party, as that only leads down the extremism path sooner or later.

We need to go beyond partisan lines and strive to have a strong multiracial opposition for check and balance.

Let us not forget that we are effectively rebuilding the country. We may take a dip in the satisfaction pool for a bit, but let’s not get too comfortable in it, for Malaysia might again digress into a failed state for the lack of a viable opposition.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.