The Umno déjà vu

SEPT 27 — Wanita Umno chief Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz is rather prescient. At last Thursday's party supreme council meeting, the straight-talking veteran warned Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi that he may not get support from Umno divisions and drew reference to the fate that befell Tun Ghafar Baba in 1993.

Today, a day after Abdullah was forced to accept a truncated transition plan which will likely see him leave office — as Prime Minister and Umno president — next March, some of his supporters and political pundits across the county were talking about the Ghafar episode.

Like then, those in the PM's camp believe that the groundswell against him was manufactured by his political opponents. They have no doubt that his popularity in and outside the party had slid badly but it was far from the hopeless situation described by some supreme council members.

For those too young to recall, Ghafar was the incumbent deputy president but did not get enough nominations to contest against popular vice-president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, then seen as a protege of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Ghafar did not contest and resigned as deputy premier while Dr Mahathir took a month after the party polls to appoint Anwar as deputy prime minister.

It was also in the 1993 party polls that the Anwar-backed Wawasan team of Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib swept through to win the three vice-president's posts, leaving a bitter Tan Sri Sanusi Junid and a graceful Abdullah to make their exit from high office.

But the twists and turns of Umno's high politics go back further in history.

Tunku Abdul Rahman — who had earlier described himself as the happiest prime minister in the world — became prime minister in name after the Alliance's disastrous electoral performance in the 1969 national polls that led to the May 13 race riots. His standing within the party was in tatters as critics, led by a brash Dr Mahathir, called for his ouster.

A national operations council (NOC) was set up to replace Parliament, ironically led by Deputy Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein with a young Abdullah as the secretary. Abdul Razak is father to Najib who has been patiently biding his time to assume the top post once held by his father.

While the Tunku had sacked his critics such as Dr Mahathir from the party while leaving the nation in his deputy's hands, Abdullah has stuck to being Mr Nice Guy, inviting his critics to confidently stay their course in the knowledge that he will not use his powers of incumbency against them.

The Tunku managed to stay as both Prime Minister and party president for two years after the 1969 debacle but Pak Lah, who had similar ideas with his June 2010 transition plan, does not appear to have such luck.

He is likely to leave next March, a year after the March 8, 2008 elections brought his high-flying premiership crashing to the ground. No thanks to unfulfilled promises while pandering to party critics who gave grudging support and took it away when it would have mattered most.

A deja vu moment, just like Ghafar's defeat and the Tunku's descent to unpopularity within the party.