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©New Sunday Times (Used by permission)
by Rehman Rashid

UMNO is not to be blamed for Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi stepping down as party president, chairman of the Barisan Nasional and prime minister of Malaysia.

Unlike with the retirements of Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Hussein Onn, this time the party itself was not the primary vehicle of those compelling its president to bow out.

To a significant extent, this was wrought by the 3,796,464 voters who chose opposition parties in the country's 12th general election. But even they cannot be held wholly responsible for this departure of a chief executive chosen by the other 4,082,411 Malaysians who voted on March 8.

Many of those who elected Pakatan Rakyat candidates may have sought a stronger parliamentary opposition, rather than the annihilation of the Barisan Nasional. Most would have wanted better governance -- but 51.08 per cent, at least, did not want another government.

Nevertheless, the 48.92 per cent of the electorate who voted against the BN seven months ago empowered those who did finally compel the PM to step down. These are the ones who now crow loudest; those who vilified and insulted him and called him names; those who sneered and jeered and carped and railed against everything he did and said -- or didn't do or say, elegantly or otherwise.

Mostly otherwise of late; witness his strained smiles at those who turned his Hari Raya open house into just another picket line.

The rabble in the galleries, barracking and booing; the rowdy applause in courtrooms and unseemly commotions outside: these have shown Abdullah the door.

People like Abdullah have no response to such behaviour. The hooting and hollering flusters and confounds them. The idiom eludes them: they lack the vocabulary; they have neither tongue nor heart for it.

So while his administration flaps feebly at the dissent buzzing about its ears, wielding the ISA like a fly-swatter in a swarm of hornets and only maddening them the more, Abdullah smiles.

He smiled when his predecessor appointed him deputy nearly 10 years ago -- even breaking into a chuckle as the older man declared his disappointment at having no better options -- and he smiled last Wednesday afternoon, when announcing his decision not to stand for the party presidency at Umno's 59th general assembly next March.

Abdullah should be remembered for smiling in the face of the Furies, even when, at last, bowing to their will. He was weak, if kindliness, compassion and tolerance constitute weakness. He lacked strength, if intransigence, force and ruthlessness constitute strength.

If it is weak to not strike back when slapped in the face, he was weak. If it is weak to smilingly extend a hand to be spurned on Aidilfitri, he was weak. If it is weak to endure humiliation with a frozen smile, he was weak.

Because he was not masterful, imposing, or capable of asserting the full authority of his office, he was weak.

Abdullah has been held to account not for anything he did, therefore, but what he permitted: the blooming of a hundred ironic flowers. He doubled the size of government, allowing the emergence of a host of new players and raising the ire of those who saw they needed leadership, not indulgence.

Most of all, he unshackled all that had been held in thrall to the national contract installed with the birth of this nation and maintained ever since by Umno & Co.

Having drawn the short stick of history, it fell upon Abdullah to pay for the Sins of the Fathers. He might hope now to take them with him into history -- virtually saying as much in his avuncular salute to Tun Razak Hussein's firstborn son at their historic press conference last Wednesday.

Thus has this man been hounded from office not so much by his own party as the howling wolves of the open range; the laughing hyenas he set free when he loosened the leashes that had muzzled them for decades. Vox populi cried "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war, which ate him alive.

(Call this a "Kok caveat": the canine reference in the preceding sentence is a quote from Shakespeare and not intended as a slight to any community.)

Not that they'll be sated with that. As spake their keeper Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim: "Najib is no better." The carnivorous carnival continues; it is said that once certain creatures taste blood, nothing else quite hits the spot with that zesty metallic zing.

One would wish that, in this feeding frenzy on a moveable feast, they refrain from similarly devouring the institutions of state as well (order in the court!) but it may be too late. Drunk on intoxicant freedoms, the liberated predators know that nothing can stand against them now without also being immolated in the furnace of their righteous wrath.

For this reason, Umno should not look too unkindly on itself. The party has not led this charge to oust its president, but followed the will of the people as represented by His Majesty's loyal opposition -- as well as those using them as shields and spearheads for their own crusades.

For this reason, those in Umno tempted to join in the pillorying of their own leadership should strategise wisely. As long as they remain in Umno, they cannot consider as allies those who would dance on Umno's grave, no matter how amicably they may break bread together in pious quest of common cause.

If they believe Abdullah's departure is necessary for Umno's resurrection, they should leave its destruction to the outside parties at present doing rather well at it. As Exodus and Disraeli counsel, it only seems like the enemy of your enemy is your friend, when in politics there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies -- only permanent interests.

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