COMMEN T Umno, the longest-ruling political party in the world, concluded its annual general meeting last week under a siege mentality, blaming the whole world for the eroding support among Malays themselves.

A party which has been in power for the past 57 years with more than two-thirds majority support in parliament till 2008 should be more confident and rely on their past records to rally their supporters. Instead, Umno leaders and delegates resorted to concocting lies such as Chinese burned the Quran in Kedah, non-Malays are out to grab power, Islam is being challenged, the Malay language is in danger, illegal businesses of Chinese and what not.

It is an admission of 57 years of poor governance and inability to rule.

These fabrications show signs of desperation and fear that they are losing the support of large sections within the Malay community. The Umno general assembly has become a rattling and rhetoric ground for their delegates and leaders to let loose their belligerent noises and raise the insecurity and fear among of Malays.

By doing so in every AGM, Umno leaders are able to divert the real economic and social issues in the Malay community to emotions and chest-beating to keep the rural community ignorant and misinformed.

After 57 years of Umno rule, Malays remain the poorest, despite the highest allocation of resources. Income inequality is highest among Malays. High unemployment and low skill still plague the community after 44 years of the New Economic Policy (NEP). The urban voters and university students have started to rebel, knowing the bogey and propaganda of Umno.

In Budget 2015 RM24.4 billion is to be spent as debt service charges such as interest. This is 13.3 percent of government revenue and 10.9 percent of government operating expenditure, that is amounting to RM92 million a day as interest payment. With RM24.4 billion, the Malaysian government can pay every Malaysian RM840 per year. Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) expenditure per year is only RM4.9 billion and it’s about five times that of BRIM.

The delegates must be blissfully ignorant that the Umno government is paying five times the BRIM amount as debt servicing charges per year. Umno leaders could have listed out their achievements and lay out the next plan and policies to uplift Malaysia from indebtedness, extremism, deficit and whatnot.   

Umno wins elections by manipulating the fear and insecurities of Malays and Islam. They will campaign on hudud and the Islamic state to stalemate PAS and the Malay race is in danger of being colonised to checkmate DAP. These issues will drive the rural Malay votes into the Umno fold.

Rural Malays doomed to remain poor?

The scandals, wastages, abuse of power, extremism and racism issues will be swept under the carpet and Umno comes back to power with the tacit support of the Election Commission. Unless PAS and PKR debunk Umno’s folly, rural Malays are doomed to remain poor.

Even South Africa has abandoned its apartheid policies, reconciled with the past and moved on. But Umno is sinking deeper into the racial and religious divide and rule. Albert Einstein said that it is insane to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. Umno has to grow wiser and move away from race and religion.

A survey by Merdeka Centre shows that 71 percent of Malays are very concerned about the rising cost of living, job security, quality of education and their future. That being the case, Umno cannot keep on harping on Islam, race and the palace all the time.

Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin was the only sober voice in the Umno AGM. He raised the issue of widening income gap between urban and rural Malays and the failure of the NEP. He also warned that a 2 percent shift in votes towards Pakatan, Umno will have to sit in opposition.

Unless the poor quality of education, corruption and the failure of bumiputra development programmes were reviewed, it is the taxpayer’s money that is going to waste. But it was beyond the grasp of Umno delegates. Can we hope that the next AGM will be different? All I have is hope.     

S RAMAKRISHNAN is a former senator.