The man who would be PM

But we failed to take into consideration one very important point. And this one very important point is Dr Mahathir is a more seasoned politician than we gave him credit for. And the script for the final scenario was written by him: his puppet Najib became Prime Minister instead of Ku Li who wanted then to be ‘independent’, reform the government, and offer the opposition a role in the government under a Unity Government.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin 

Why is Umno quiet about Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and his Amanah? The answer is that they simply can’t do anything about it.

Even among Umno members there is increasing disquiet about how things are managed.

Saifuddin Abdullah’s recent ‘out-of-line’ statements and Khairy Jamaluddin’s conscientious objections are only tips of the icebergs.

To sack Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah from Umno is to
precipitate the party's own implosion.

Tengku Razaleigh is merely pointing out the realities. He is still an Umno member – so what can Umno do at the moment?

Umno can’t sack a person of his stature without precipitating its own implosion. So go ahead- sack him and it will make the days of many.

Tengku Razaleigh is of course mindful of the possible repercussions of his actions. He may not be fielded as an Umno candidate in the next elections. He may lose the support of Gua Musang Umno.

Current Umno leaders inconsequential

The last time I spoke to him, he was telling me of these reservations. I pointed out to him that his victory doesn’t just depend on Umno votes.

It depends on the rakyat. Given the history of seeing only 60 % of Umno members voting for their own candidates and 60 % of Malays voting for non Umno candidates in the last general election, I would rate his chances as being above average.

The opinion of the present Umno leadership is quite simply inconsequential. So that is why Umno is quiet about the whole thing.

At the moment this is what Amanah provides. Amanah provides platform for speaking out against the abuses on the Merdeka heritage.

What I am about to say is in response to the article above. It is not something new but what I have said many times in the past. In fact, in my more than one hour interview with TV3 in Perth, I touched on this issue. Unfortunately, TV3 was not ‘brave’ enough to air that part of my interview.


First of all, because of the way Malaysian elections are conducted, even if Barisan Nasional garners just 45% of the popular votes it will still be able to form the federal government. This is the reality of the situation and this is why we need BERSIH -- to reform the electoral system to change this state of affairs.

For Pakatan Rakyat to be able to form the federal government it would need to garner at least 60% of the popular votes. And this is almost impossible if we do not reform the system. Maybe 50% of the popular votes would be possible. But 50% would not give Pakatan Rakyat the federal government. It has to be at least 60%.

This means, short of a massive revamp of the system, it would be impossible for Pakatan Rakyat to form the federal government. And this means we may need to look at Barisan Nasional for the next Malaysian Prime Minister (unless Pakatan Rakyat can do the ‘impossible’ and garner 60% of the popular votes).

Let’s be very clear about one thing. I would love to see the Prime Minister come from Pakatan Rakyat. Whether this ‘someone’ from Pakatan Rakyat is Anwar Ibrahim or Nizar Jamaluddin or Lim Guan Eng or whoever is secondary at the moment. This is not the issue we need to discuss just yet. The issue is, for the meantime, who from Barisan Nasional should be the Prime Minister.

And that was why six years ago back in 2006 we looked at the possibility that this someone from Barisan Nasional, which therefore also meant someone from Umno, has to be someone who is prepared to embark upon a reform agenda.

And this someone, due to lack of any other more suitable alternative, would have to be Tengku Tan Sri Razaleigh Hamzah a.k.a. Ku Li.

And with that in mind, bloggers, political activists, and civil society members from both sides of the political divide got together to see how Abdullah Ahmad Badawi a.k.a. Pak Lah could be ousted and replaced with Ku Li.

Meeting after meeting was held. Ex-Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was also approached and a few meetings were held with him as well. And it was agreed that Pak Lah would be ousted and Ku Li would replace him.

But there was one condition that Dr Mahathir stipulated and which Ku Li could not agree to. And that one condition was: once Pak Lah is ousted and Ku Li takes over, a Presidential Council would be formed and the new Prime Minister would be ‘guided’ by this Council.

This is just like how the nine Rulers rule, through state Royal Councils. But this Presidential Council would be slightly different. It would be a de facto Prime Minister Council.

Ku Li, of course, did not agree to this and so Dr Mahathir decided to back Najib Tun Razak instead. Najib agreed to become the rubber-stamp Prime Minister with the Presidential Council as the de facto Prime Minister.

The question would be: who will head this Presidential Council -- basically the de facto Prime Minister? And the answer is: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. This, in short, meant that Dr Mahathir would become the de facto Prime Minister while Pak Lah’s successor would be just a rubber-stamp Prime Minister.

Then, along came the number two of the Special Branch of the Military Intelligence, Kol Azmi Zainal Abidin, who claimed he had documentary evidence that Rosmah Mansor and her ADC (and husband) were at the scene of Altantuya Shaariibuu’s murder. This most damaging report would thus disqualify Najib and would put Ku Li back in the lead.

The day after I signed my Statutory Declaration, Dr Mahathir summoned Tan Sri Sanusi Junid to his office and asked him whether he had read my SD. Sanusi at first did not know what Dr Mahathir was talking about. After Sanusi had read my SD, Dr Mahathir retorted, “Raja Petra has just killed our horse. We need to find a new one.”

However, before the final nail could be hammered into Najib’s coffin, Kol Azmi did a U-turn and claimed that all the evidence had been removed from the Military Intelligence office and had been destroyed. He also claimed that no copies were made.

Instead of hammering the final nail into Najib’s coffin, it was hammered into my coffin and Najib went on to become the new Prime Minister while Ku Li was shafted in the arse (along with me of course).

Is Ku Li going to be a better Prime Minister? That is what many may ask. The question should be whether Ku Li would be a better Prime Minister than Najib. And whether with Ku Li as Prime Minister, we would have a problem of a Rosmah Mansor acting like Queen Marie Antoinette of France. And whether with Ku Li as Prime Minister we would have a de facto Prime Minister calling the shots and playing the role of the real power behind the throne.

Ku Li made one thing very clear, which unsettled Dr Mahathir like hell. And that one thing is: he would become an ‘independent’ Prime Minister who would press for reforms and even consider forming a ‘Unity Government’ with the opposition.

On the basis of these three promises, we decided to back Ku Li as the new Barisan Nasional (Umno) Prime Minister.

This was back in 2006, two years before the March 2008 general election and one year before the November 2007 BERSIH rally. No one knew then how the opposition was going to perform in the following general election due in 2008 or 2009.

In fact, at that time, there was no Pakatan Rakyat. Pakatan Rakyat had not even been formed yet. And DAP was still an ‘independent’ opposition party and not part of any opposition coalition.

So, our only bet then, in the absence of a strong and viable opposition coalition, was to try to influence changes within Umno and back the best man who could become Prime Minister and bring reforms to Malaysia.

I stress, this was back in 2006, five years ago. And back then this appeared to be the best alternative.

But we failed to take into consideration one very important point. And this one very important point is Dr Mahathir is a more seasoned politician than we gave him credit for. And the script for the final scenario was written by him: his puppet Najib became Prime Minister instead of Ku Li who wanted then to be ‘independent’, reform the government, and offer the opposition a role in the government under a Unity Government.