What tangible results did the UMNO General Assembly in Malaysia achieve?

Producer: Yvonne Gomez
First broadcast: 27 September 04, Radio Singapore International

The United Malays National Organisation or UMNO party in Malaysia closed its 55th general assembly in Kuala Lumpur over the weekend.

Some of the key issues discussed during the meeting involved money politics within UMNO, picking good leaders and the need for Malays to stay relevant in the global marketplace.

For a reaction on these issues, Yvonne Gomez spoke to Dr Kamarulnizam Abdullah of the Strategic Studies and International Relations Department at University Kebangsaan Malaysia.

She first asked Dr Kamarulnizam if money politics within UMNO can be eliminated or minimized.

KN: I doubt that money politics can be eliminated from UMNO politics, because it’s been there for so long. The question now is how to reduce the practice of money politics in UMNO. I think that in politics in every country, you are going to encounter this kind of problem.

What are your suggestions for how money politics can be reduced?

KN: One way to solve this issue is the one suggested by Pak Lah, that maybe UMNO should look at it by setting up a committee to look at how serious the problem of money politics is, why it’s been there for so long, and try to offer some remedies to UMNO and how to tackle it. My suggestion is that this committee shouldn’t offer a definition of what money politics is, because once you offer a definition of money politics, then in future, if you want to make allegations against somebody, and you confine your allegations to the definition, and if the act doesn’t fall into that definition, then you’ll face some problems. It should be broad enough for a future committee to consider what money politics really is.

There was also a lot of emphasis on picking the right leaders. From the current Vice-President team, what’s your assessment of the future of UMNO leadership?

KN: I’m quite cynical, because the results were a surprise result for everybody. But I think Pak Lah can work together with the current leadership that’s been selected by the member. It’s going to be a challenge because I think the election doesn’t reflect what Pak Lah really needs, in terms of quality of leadership – clean, efficient leaders – and judging from those who’ve been elected, sorry to say, I have my doubts.

An interesting issue that was also mentioned was that of the moral dangers brought about by reality television. This is quite an unusual thing to be discussed at an UMNO general assembly, so what are your own thoughts on this?

KN: This issue has been around, but I think this is the first time this issue has been brought up by the UMNO delegation. The problem is that we’ve now been introduced to satellite television and the content of the programmes are quite open and the western influence is already there. Also, satellite television is not controlled, unlike terrestrial television, by the government. Here, you have to look at the problems of supply and demand. And, another problem is that they don’t have a commission to look at the content of the programmes showed on television. The Ministry of Information used to be the Ministry that really monitored the contents of these programmes.

Overall, what do you think this UMNO general assembly achieved in terms of tangibles?

KN: I think the most substantial one is that we have a new leader, and group of leaders that will bring UMNO through the next three years. But I’m more interested in looking at the Youth Wing, and also the Puteri Wing, because this is another level of UMNO that will replace the future UMNO leaders. The second most substantial is the idea of looking back at the role of Malays, like what the Malays have really achieved so far. I think most of the debate has concentrated on the economic and education aspect, and they’ve realised that, so far, although so many policies have been set-up and introduced, the Malays seem to be, not in the sidelines, but still can’t catch up with the rest in Malaysia. So this last UMNO assembly, is a stepping stone, or foundation for another re-look and re-think for the UMNO leadership, and also the government leadership led by UMNO, to look back at what the Malays have really achieved so far.