From The Sunday Star 27th February 2000

Umno, according to former deputy president Tan Sri Musa Hitam, needs to undergo rehabilitation to meet the political demands of representing the Malays. The former deputy prime minister spoke to MERGAWATI ZULFAKAR on the coming party elections. HERE are excerpts of the two-hour interview held at Musa's office in Jalan Ampang on Thursday.

A: I have never been in favour of such a ruling for the simple reason that I've been there. Contests in any democratic organisation are healthy for the good of that particular organisational system. Contests would give the opportunity to members at large to decide and select the best that they can find.

Contests in a political organisation should be regarded as a process of offering one's services to that particular party. If you take that point of view, everybody would understand the purpose of contest as the process of offering service and selecting or electing personalities of their choice.

In other words, members are given opportunity to decide whether those who offer themselves are able to serve to the best of their ability. That is the principle that I've held onto dearly.

As far as Umno is concerned, more so during this period where we have never faced such serious challenges to our existence, I think the members must have a sense of participation and belonging, especially in selecting their leaders.

It may turn out that there are no other nominations than the incumbents. So be it.

A: I would not go that far. I would say that if indeed it is a trend, it was within the last 10 years or so that it had been that way. It is an unhealthy trend.

If the top leaders are not contesting in the manner that all top leaders had decided time and time again, it would give the top leadership a false sense of security and a false sense of popularity. And if they do assume this, I dare say it is dangerous for the party. The top leaders might get this false feeling that they are infallible, that they can do no wrong.

A: To me, the reasons why there have been serious splits in the party after the contests is not that contests would automatically result in disunity. It is much more serious than that. I feel it is the political culture of the party that has resulted in this so-called split.

What do I mean by that? The political culture in Umno is such that both winners and losers in contests for the top posts did (and do) realise that the political life of the losers would go ... to the extent that the winners will haunt, will pursue, will take all steps possible to ensure that he is politically dead.

Losers would lose everything. They would not only be threatened in their political future--even their normal life, their bread and butter, would be threatened.

Their children and relatives would be deprived of opportunities. Those around them, the activists who support them, would also suffer the same thing.

Knowing this would be the situation, the contests become so intense that both sides see them as a matter of life and death. To me that is what's happening. The most famous one was 1987. Winners took all, losers lost all. Both sides knew it and the losers did not want to accept it. They dragged the party to court. The rest is history.

A: That is good enough and sufficient. If that is so, what is wrong with a contest? At least you would know that 40% of members do not agree. How useful is that knowledge?

You have to take into consideration the views of the 40%. Their views may be constructive enough to improve the party and, for that matter, the country. That is the usefulness of knowing that you are not 100% popular.

Then it goes back to why we need the principle of democracy, why we need the Opposition, why we need criticism. Because you want to get the right feedback, you want to know the main points for the betterment of the party and society.

A: If you look at the process of the Umno annual meeting, you will notice there have been considerable changes in the manner by which these meetings are conducted.

In the old days, Umno general meetings were sessions whereby the top leaders would be subjected to the closest scrunity by way of criticisms, questions and debates. The top leaders would be squirming, and made aware of what was wrong with their policies and conduct with party administration.

This was the way to get feedback without fear or favour. You listened and used this as a filtering process so that we could adapt to demands of the rank and file who represent the Malays at large.

We have always said we are a Malay political party, but unfortunately now it has changed. Now each state will be represented by one speaker, appointed by the state leadership to speak on one subject. The speeches would be monitored and discussed and the script would even be written.

And the natural tendency, as I understand it, is it will be a speech that would not hurt the very top leadership or the collection of very influential leaders who hold higher office in government. And the tendency of leaders of that particular state would be 'Please make sure that you are not going to shame us,' that is please do not go out of line.

There is no such thing as anybody raising his hand and saying 'I would like to speak.'

A: If they are given the opportunity, they would. The problem is that we have leaders at different structures who are prepared to so-call criticise but are not really criticising; it's more to attract attention.

The mass media have the opportunity to voluntarily restrain and be selective in their presentation of criticism. On a personal level, I have no problem putting forward my views. I have told them quite openly and they have been willing to listen and argue with me and be positive.

A: That spirit of offering service for the sake of service was slowly eroded. Service was associated with position. As time went on, positions became associated with sucesss, and success was measured in terms of material wealth. There began the problem of the Malay community. Once position becomes associated with wealth, the pursuit of that position becomes much more intense.

A: Money politics was inevitable in view of what I have just said. So the answer is, yes. Money politics is practised everywhere. Even opposition political parties now need money for politics. The issue is how to ensure that money politics does not get so out of hand as to cause the party to degenerate to a stage where everything can be bought. This is the biggest challenge for Umno.