UMNO members will get the president they deserve

There's a famous saying that people get the government they deserve. What it essentially means is if the general populace is apathetic about the situation they are in, they deserve more of the same. If they want change they need to take action.

For a long time, we Malaysians got the government we deserved. Despite the corruption, the arrogance, the elitism and all that bad stuff that came with BN being the government of the day, not enough Malaysians voted against BN. Which is why we had over six decades of BN rule. It's the government we collectively deserved.


Granted, the odds were always stacked against the opposition. It didn't have much money, there was blatant gerrymandering, postal votes were always suspect, etc, etc... Yet, if enough people cared enough to vote for the opposition and against BN, change could have happened. But it didn't... until GE14, where despite all the disadvantage and against all odds, Pakatan Harapan finally won. I guess at long last we deserved something better.

Well, UMNO is going to vote for a new president after the last one resigned in disgrace. Who will it be: Zahid, Ku Li or KJ?

Zahid represents that status quo. And it's reflected in the debate where he said UMNO wasn't at fault. It was the component parties that failed to deliver. It will be the same old UMNO as before under Zahid. No change.

Ku Li is a safe pair of hands. He's of royal blood so he will get on well with the royalty. He is independently wealthy, so there won't be any scandals involving "gifts" and "donations" or billions of ringgit mysteriously appearing in his bank account. He is untainted by 1MDB. He's sort of a middle-ground candidate who will try to make things better but won't really rock the boat.

KJ is the radical who wants to change UMNO and turn it into something new. He's the most savvy of the three and he's saying all the right things. UMNO has the best chance of transformation under KJ than Zahid (no change) or Ku Li (little change). But like Zahid, he was part of Najib's Cabinet and he had fervently defended his boss on the 1MDB issue. Like Zahid, he is tainted by 1MDB.

Some 165,000 party representatives from 191 party divisions will cast their votes on Saturday. So, who will it be? Answer: The president will be the one UMNO members deserve.