The enemies within
Most of Khairy Jamaluddin's enemies within UMNO are made up of younger
leaders who believe that he is an upstart. They do not acknowledge that
he has substantial knowledge in government though having served in
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's office for the last four years. They think that
he is put there merely because he married the daughter of the Prime
Minister. At the same time, they are disgusted by the way Khairy puts his
cronies in charge of various branches of government ministries, ranging
from the Communications Office of the Prime Minister's Department to
Khazanah Nasional.
This is not of course simply a matter of puerile jealousy. They believe
that Khairy is a real threat and quite a significant one at that too,
given his meteoric rise to power. They too have ambitions of their own to
become Prime Minister. Indeed, some of them even feel the Prime Minister's
seat is their God-given right. So they try their best to parry Khairy's
every move and block it by hook or by crook. The normal UMNO method of
poison pen letters, backstabbing SMSes, and secret alliances grafted in
smoke-filled rooms are some of the normal methods employed to keep Khairy
at bay. But Khairy is not the usual UMNO political enemy by far.
Many of Khairy's enemies are content to bide their time and wait for the
day when Abdullah Badawi is kicked out of the office of UMNO president.
They believe that, then, Khairy will lose his godfather and protector,
laying himself bare and exposed to attacks from the grassroots. Khairy's
enemies hope that the seething anger at Khairy so openly displayed at the
last UMNO General Assembly will reach boiling point and explode once
Abdullah is removed from office. Then Khairy will be led to the altar of
sacrifice and his throat slit from ear to ear.
Yet, Khairy understands this plus that he has to strike first. And the
last two years since Abdullah became UMNO President has been spent
precisely doing that.
Khairy utilises two methods: neutralising what enemies that can be
neutralised, and extinguishing the dangerous ones who cannot be mollified
by titles and positions. There are many of the first category, such as
Azimi Daim, Norza Zakaria and Aziz Sheikh Fadzir. All three used to be
seen as potential challengers to Khairy's position, especially in UMNO
Youth.
However, they could be easily bought as they are in politics merely to
gain positions and make money. They fear ˜going the whole way" and doing
things that may risk their comfortable current positions. So Azimi was
given the UMNO Youth Information Chief title as well as an EXCO position.
Aziz was given a seat in the last general election. Norza not only got a
post in the UMNO Supreme Council, but a license to ˜print money" through
the powerful ˜toll-keeper" position he was awarded in the Second Finance
Ministry. UMNO politicians such as these are not a real threat to Khairy
because, whenever they rear their ugly horns, they could be led to the
trough of patronage and fed to their fat stomach's content.
The more dangerous threats come from the second category made up of
established politicians who are scions of UMNO leadership even before
Khairy appeared on the scene. One such personality is Khairy's own boss,
Hishamuddin Hussein, who was instrumental, prior to 1999, in bringing
Khairy to the attention of then Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.
Hishamuddin believes that it is his birthright to be a future Prime
Minister of Malaysia given that, like Najib (his cousin “his mother Tun
Suhailah being Najib's mother Tun Rahah's elder sister), his father had
held that august office before being deposed by Dr. Mahathir.
At first Hishamuddin thought that Khairy would do like what he is doing -
play the ˜patience game". Hishamuddin started out a strong supporter of
Mahathir and his then heir-apparent Anwar Ibrahim. Through his constant
brown-nosing of Anwar, Hishamuddin quickly found himself Deputy Minister
of Finance and Minister of Youth and Sports, jumping over the head of his
own boss, UMNO Youth Chief Mohd Zahid Hamidi. But Hishamuddin did this in
his late thirties after years of legal practice and with at least the
perception of patient unobtrusive building of his political career.
But Khairy does not believe in such things. He wants what he wants fast
and he wants them now. So he has become the youngest Vice Youth Chief of
UMNO since Nazri Aziz. Though this was suggested by Hishamuddin himself
to save his own position, Hishamuddin now realises Khairy is a bigger
threat than Aziz Sheikh Fadzir or anyone else could be.
In addition, Hishamuddin is unhappy that Khairy set up his own network
within the UMNO Youth machinery, e.g. nominating Norza to the Supreme
Council over and above Hishamuddin's own choice. Khairy also set up an
informal network of UMNO Vice Youth Division Chiefs throughout the
country, a phenomenon unheard of when Hishamuddin himself held that post.
Hishamuddin realises that he now holds office by the grace and favour of
Khairy. When the latter is ready for the post of Youth Chief, the former
must go.
If the situation continues, Hishamuddin might find it is time to go to the
only place where he can go, which is the position of UMNO Vice President.
But the stage is already filled to the brim with aspirants to the
leadership. Hishamuddin may well find that, in the next UMNO election,
Khairy will win the post of UMNO Youth chief with ease while he will lose
the battle for the UMNO Vice-Presidency.
Hishamuddin is stuck because Khairy has already laid a trap for him. He
makes pronouncements that forces Hishamuddin to accept his view of
national politics. Hishamuddin cannot play the Malay racial card because
Khairy has played that first, especially in areas such as education,
which comes under his own ministerial purview. More importantly, Khairy
is opting in several of Hishamuddin's ex-allies such as Dr. Adham Baba
and Razali Ibrahim (the MP for Muar) to slowly begin accepting the
duality of UMNO Youth, where Hishamuddin is just the nominal official
chief, but Khairy runs the daily show.
This is how Khairy is ˜fixing" Hishamuddin. He has already planted key
allies within Hishamuddin's ministry. Some of Hishamuddin's former
loyalists have been given ministerial responsibilities and parliamentary
seats, not to strengthen Hishamuddin himself but to distance his advisors
from him and make them preoccupied with their own careers. This has
created vacancies in Hishamuddin's office and Khairy has filled them with
his own allies, notably from the YPCS (Young Professionals Consultative
Society), people of Khairy's own batch, nominally loyal to Hishamuddin
but in reality stooges of Khairy himself. Nothing goes by Hishamuddin's
office that is not reported to Khairy. Indeed, Hishamuddin's own Special
Officers are the eyes and ears of Khairy.
Removing Hishamuddin will be easy because Hishamuddin is not a ˜fighter"
unlike, for example, another potential Youth Chief, Dr Mohamad Khir Toyo,
the Menteri Besar of Selangor. Khir comes from a different background than
Khairy though they share the first syllable of their names. While Khairy
comes from a diplomat's family with a high ranking in the civil service,
Khir's father, known locally as "Wak Joyo", is of peasant stock and a
former PAS member to boot. Khir built himself into national politics by
his good-natured bonhomie with Mahathir's children, notably Mokhzani and
Mukhriz. It was Mokhzani, who was then UMNO Youth Treasurer, who
recommended that Khir, then a one-term assemblyman and not even a
division leader, succeed Abu Hassan Omar as Menteri Besar of Selangor
after the shameful revelation of Abu Hassan's incestuous sexual scandals.
UMNO Selangor was of course not happy that this young upstart was suddenly
propelled to the leadership. And Khir had more ambitions to fulfil. At
only 37, Khir is by far the most visible Youth leader in the country
after Hishamuddin and Khairy. He would not want to stop merely at being
an UMNO Supreme Council member. Indeed, if Hishamuddin had decided to
leave the post of UMNO Youth Chief last time, Khir would have been the
frontrunner to succeed him. With money in his pocket due to the extensive
giving away of land to the Lebar Daun group and other key business allies,
Khir is well suited to assume the leadership of the UMNO Youth Wing -
except he has to contend with Khairy.
Khairy had tried fixing Khir by exposing some mistakes he had made as
Menteri Besar. Khairy is in luck because Khir has been greedy and
rapacious in making money out of his position as Menteri Besar. Khairy
merely needed to exploit some of these corrupt practices. One of the
methods he used was to expose Khir's wrongdoings in the award of
development land within the Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam nature reserve. Khir
had granted substantial pieces of land to companies related to his family
and the family of his wife. The head of news at TV3, Datuk Kamarul Zaman
Zainal (an ex-officer of Abdullah Badawi's office) had a meeting with
Khairy in which the latter gave the go-ahead for TV3 to air these
misdeeds. Datuk Kamarul Zaman had no love for Khir as he is an Abdullah
loyalist and believes that, in doing so, he is helping Abdullah
strengthen his position against residues of the Mahathir era.
But Khir fought back and he had some powerful help. It was not only his
related companies that had been given land in Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam but
also companies associated with members of the Selangor royal family and
other key political and business personalities close to Abdullah. When
TV3 began airing the problems, they panicked and asked for help from
Dato' Thajudeen Abdul Wahab, Chief Private Secretary to the Prime
Minister. Dato' Thajudeen used his authority to ask Datuk Kamarul Zaman
to back off and stop the attacks. So it gradually subsided.
Then Khairy used another tack. He tried to show that Khir was an
incompetent administrator. At a Selangor UMNO Liaison committee meeting
in May 2005, through a whisper from Khairy, Abdullah Badawi questioned
the logic of declaring Selangor as a "developed" state. His plan - which
was hatched way back before Abdullah became PM - was to emphasise
Selangor's unique position as an economic powerhouse by declaring it a
developed state on the 31st of August 2005. Admittedly, Khir had massaged
the statistics and figures in order to make such a proclamation. However
it is nothing unusual in the scheme of UMNO politics where even the
former Prime Minister Mahathir had made unilateral declarations such as
that Malaysia was an "Islamic state".
Abdullah blasted Khir for making such a declaration during the
closed-session meeting. In order to soften the blow, he emphasised that
he had earlier criticised Kedah Menteri Besar Syed Razak Syed Zain for
the impossible promise he made to make Kedah a "developed state" by 2010.
The real target of attack however was Khir. In Abdullah's simple
uncluttered mind, he was making a genuine criticism based on the lack of
reasons for the declaration of a developed state. But, to Khairy, this
carried a more valuable message, which was to show that Khir was a liar,
incompetent and bumbling. After all, the aim to declare Selangor as a
"developed state" was something that Khir had been working on since 2001,
and he had announced it far and wide to everyone.
This is just the beginning of the attack on Khir. Of course Khir will go
ahead and make the declaration in August. But he is wounded by the
collective attack on all fronts, especially in the mass media against his
administration. Nor is he supported (at least in the public eye) by the
Prime Minister. The most Khir could gather was lukewarm support at a
Selangor UMNO meeting by Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.
By the time Khir announces that he is ready to go for the UMNO Youth
leadership, many of his mistakes would have already been exposed by
Khairy for public consumption. That is not to say that Khir is a less
competent man than Khairy, but Khir does not control the media, whereas
Khairy does. Either through his own plants such as Kalimullah Masheerul
Hassan (the Group Chief Editor of the New Straits Times) and his breed of
Singapore trained hired hacks such as Brendan Pereira, or the Heavenly
Kings of The Star, or Datuk Kamarul Zaman in TV3, these will be the
methods by which Khir is eventually destroyed. And Khir can scarcely
fight back given his own past misdeeds and the fact that his press
officer is a university dropout with not even an SPM credit in languages.
Hishamuddin and Khir are Khairy's seniors, as far as ranking in UMNO is
concerned. But Khairy also faces challenges from his peers in UMNO who
are almost as close to Abdullah as he himself. He has not neglected these
threats and, like the fratricides of the Middle Ages, Khairy has plans to
strangle his own brothers.
----------------------------------------------------------------
This e-mail has been sent via JARING webmail at http://www.jaring.my
No comments:
Post a Comment