Wings flying behind Umno president
Umno’s three wings have started the war drum beat for their president Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to declare the Umno battle cry today.
THERE were women everywhere you turned at the PWTC. It was as though they had invaded the Umno headquarters where the party general assembly is taking place this week.
Women hold up half the sky but in Umno, they hold up more than half of the party, a point the senior ladies in Wanita Umno hammer home at their assembly each year.
As former Umno MP Tawfik Ismail often says, the party that has the women power will have the edge in the general election.
No other party, whether in the ruling coalition or the opposition, has Umno’s kind of women network and organisation.
The women’s wing plays a central role in campaigning house-to-house during the election, they are the real foot soldiers. It explains how the senior ladies dare to twist the men around their little fingers.
And going by Tan Sri Shahrizat Jalil’s opening address at the Wanita Umno assembly, the twisting is about to get more interesting.
She is holding the Umno leaders to their promise of according women 30% representation in GLCs and pushing for more women candidates in the polls even as her own political future remains unclear.
Every year, the senior ladies will bully the three male observers at their assembly. This time, they made the trio stand up while Shahrizat lectured them on how much the women put in for the party and why they deserve more.
The three men stood there nodding and smiling sheepishly and when she was done, she told them: “Now you can sit down, we still love you.”
One of the men, Muar MP Datuk Razali Ibrahim was later given the chance to speak and he praised the ladies to the hilt.
The Wanita assembly does not always follow the rules of meetings and the ladies often behave in a less than ladylike fashion and shout like pasar malam traders, but it is never boring.
Two years ago, Shahrizat secured the backbone of Umno accolade for her wing.
This year, the women elevated her to “Ibu Terbaik Bangsa”, a supermum title alluding to female leadership.
The women’s wing has evolved under her. It is increasingly filled with well-educated women with ambitions to play a bigger role in the country, and the general election will be a test of whether the Umno leadership is ready for more women at the top.
There is a terribly hyped-up mood at this year’s party gathering. It is the final assembly before the “big one”, as some of them call the general election, and they are beating the war drums.
In fact, Shahrizat wrapped up her speech with the sound of drum beats building up to a deafening crescendo.
Politics was the name of the game at the Wanita, Youth and Puteri assemblies yesterday.
While Shahrizat’s political target was DAP’s Lim Kit Siang, Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin’s guns were trained squarely on Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Khairy’s speech was arguably the most political he had ever made on the Umno stage.
Last year, he pointed out the inconsistencies of Dr Mahathir. This year, there was no more need to tiptoe around Dr Mahathir given that he is now the leader of the opposition.
Khairy stripped away the misplaced nostalgia surrounding the former premier’s rule.
There were big achievements, but there were also abuse of power, colossal mistakes and wastage, from cronyism and silencing of dissent to the lopsided toll agreements and scandals like the forex losses and bailouts of crony companies.
He asked the millennials to stop looking at the Mahathir-era through rose-tinted lenses.
Khairy is one of the few Umno leaders who do not owe where they are today to Dr Mahathir.
But the Umno Youth chief’s new daring against Dr Mahathir has to do with the fact that Dr Mahathir and his baggage has now been transferred to the opposition.
Umno no longer has to defend and whitewash the elder man’s past mis- takes, he is no longer Umno’s problem.
Not many Umno leaders can do what Khairy did – put up a well-argued case to debunk the narrative of the opposition.
“He provided a lot of ammunition and bullets for Umno members on the ground to counter what the opposition is saying.
“What appealed to me was when he reinforced his progressive credentials and presented a fresh narrative for the modern Malay and his call for a new social deal for the youth. It will inject hope for the future among the youth,” said political commentator Amir Fareed Rahim.
Some were expecting Khairy to ride on his Sea Games success, but he did not once bring it up. That was pretty classy of him because self-praise is no praise.
There was also a clear consensus among the three wings that their president has survived the political storm that shook up the party two years ago.
Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has stamped his mark as the undisputed “big boss”, not only because he survived Dr Mahathir’s attacks but because he has managed to stay focused on his job of running the country and leading the party.
He did not let the opposition attacks distract him from what he had to do and he had won the respect of and commitment from the three wings.
Umno’s wings have set the tone for their president’s big moment today.