The animosity between Umno (Penang) and Gerakan is still very alive. Koh admission – leaving Barisan Nasional is one of the three options that Gerakan seriously considering right now have (refer Malaysiakini news) irked Penang Umno leaders.
Penang Barisan Nasional leaders want Gerakan acting president Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon to make a stand on the party’s position in the coalition. Penang Umno liaison committee deputy chairman Datuk Abdul Rashid Abdullah said the former chief minister must determine the direction of his party. Thestar reports:
“As a leader, he must be responsible to the coalition. He needs to set the course for Gerakan and make his position clear. After all, a fish rots from the head down.
“I regret that we have parti perosak (party spoilers) within Barisan. These factions can leave if they want to,” he said.
“If you go on sentiments alone, I would say more than 60% (want to leave) but we are taking a lot of factors into consideration. A decision cannot be based just on sentiments.” Koh said earlier today.
It is not clear if Abdul Rashid statement will be backed by Abdullah administration. I suspect he would opt for ‘wait and see’ stand before making any official statement.
There are many people in UMNO hold strong to the belief that the only way forward for the country is their way, that is, self centered, race base and being supreme to others. Their method of give and take is that as long as you give and they take, then everything is OK. And their method of equality is as long as they are getting all the help and you have to work hard for yourself, then we are equal.
If a Gerakan member tore up the photo of Abdullah Badawi what would the UMNOputras do? But that’s what Ahamd Ismail and his people did to Koh’s photo and they got away lightly. If I were Koh I would not hesitate to leave the BN coalition. It proves the big brother UMNO treats minor parties very lightly and without respect.
What is Koh waiting for? Now UMNO and MCA are directly telling Gerakan to leave BN is they are not happy. In fact the minute Koh withdraws Gerakan from BN, UMNO & MCA will say good riddance! UMNO and MCA, together with MIC want to revert to the old kind of racist Alliance politics of old, where they purportedly claim to represent the Malay, Chinese and Indian interests. Now with MCA and MIC weakened so badly after the last GE, their leaders like Ong Ka Chuan and Samy Vellu continue to be stupid in thinking that UMNO will treat them the way like Tunku Abdul Rahman did from 1957-69. The reality is that UMNO leaders like Khir Toyo and Najib want to make them even more superficial window dressing than in the pre-1969 period. But people like Ong Ka Chuan and Samy Vellu, who have completely lost their dignity and behaving more like UMNO’s slaves do not mind! The sad part is that they think the Chinese and Indians still subscribe to their their thinking that non-Malays are content to be 2nd class citizens, even slaves, to enjoy the so-called “political stability” which UMNO purportedly provides. If you look at political reality of the 21st century with the Malays, Chinese, Indians, Ibans, Kadazans, rejecting racial politics of UMNO, Ong Ka Chuan and Samy Vellu still live under UMNO’s tempurung of the 1950s where Chinese and Indians continue to treated as “immigrants” in Tanah Melayu and must behave as such. It is in fact Pakatan Rakyat and Anwar whose actions have shown that they can provide the political stability that the people, and in doing so, expose UMNO as the biggest racists and MCA and MIC as their biggest running dogs, with all 3 doing their best to destabilize an already stable society where all races are beginning to regard themselves as Malaysians first and Malays, Chinese and Indians, incidentally.
Koh should take the cue from all these developments to withdraw Gerakan from the BN. It is the only way to rebuild Gerakan as a genuine multi-racial party at its inauguration in 1968 after the mess inflicted upon it by UMNO’s racist politics which transformed Gerakan into a Chinese party no better than MCA!