How UMNO can win GE17, using The Art of War

1. “A kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.”

It is very important for you to remember that racial politics is dead. Winning an election will not be caused by racial sentiments.

Now, that doesn’t mean racial sentiments won’t be useful. It will be, but it won’t cause you winning the election. There are correlations to victory, but correlation is not causation.

After GE14 there were some talks of opening UMNO to non-Malays. No, that is not the solution. The existence of MIC & MCA during the previous election proves that racial politics is now obsolete.

You might say let’s revamp UMNO, MCA, and MIC, but that too will not work.

It’s more effective to rewrite a bad plot of a movie rather than keeping the bad plot while recasting the actors. If not, the movie will still be bad.

2. “Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.”

You must be fluid. Circumstances have changed, and you must too. To win Malaysian politics, you need not only the support from all races, but also support from all ranges of the political spectrum.

It can be reasonably argued that one of the reasons Pakatan won the last election, is because they represented the most ideologies that the median voters can accept. This is also known as the Median Voter Theorem.

That’s why when Mahathir left UMNO, he formed BERSATU. He didn’t join PKR. Because Pakatan needed a representation for the conservative group.

In Pakatan, they have AMANAH for the religious voters, BERSATU for the conservative & rural voters, and DAP & PKR for the urban voters. Ideologically, they represent the most overs.

One of the reasons BN lost, is they did not have representation for the progressive & urban voters.

“Chinese & Indian” parties are ineffective. Voters don’t look at labels, they look at the ideas and the cause that the party is fighting for. That’s why MCA and MIC didn’t work.

You must be fluid like water.

3. “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”

You can’t go to political war without planning how to win. You cannot depend on luck. When going to war, you must assume that luck will not be on your side.

One strategy you can utilise is forming a party to represent the urban voters. That is more strategic compared to “modernising” UMNO, because you still need a party to represent the rural voters.

The goal is to create a perception that we represent all ideologies. That might sound deceiving. It is, because

4. “All war is based on deception.”

It is not your end-goal to deceive the people. But in political stratagem, in gaining and maintaining power, deception is inevitable. Where you are strong, appear weak. And where you are weak, appear strong. You need to confuse your enemy.

Part of the war is for you to create an alliance that represents the most acceptable ideologies.

Do not use the same name — Barisan Nasional, don’t even use the same logo and colour. You want to create the illusion that you’re new, that even the “new BN” hates the old BN.

The ideological representations that you must focus on:

i) A party for the conservatives: UMNO.
ii) A party for the liberals: You must create one.
iii) A party for the Islamists: Create one, or ally with PAS.
iv) A socialist party for the Non-Malay conservatives: Create one, but wait after the first three is solid. Because,

5. “If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak.”

Nazi Germany was very close in winning the second world war. But Hitler made several mistakes that cost him the defeat. One of his biggest mistake was Operation Barbarossa — the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Hitler and his allies were actually winning the war against Britain. Because Japan had invaded much of the Pacific territories (including Malaya). Meanwhile, in the West, Britain was seriously damaged by the Blitzkrieg and the battle of Dunkirk.

If he’s close in winning the war, why did Hitler invade Russia?

It’s because he’s so fixated on Lebensraum — a German concept where in order for a race to fully develop it needs a certain geographical area. To him, by invading Russia, he will achieve that concept, even though that might affect his winning chances. He was distracted.

Even during the operation, he made more mistakes, like attacking Kiev instead of Moscow where they could strike a decisive blow against the Soviets.

He did not even provide any winter clothing to his soldiers (the operations started in the summer). The German army only came to Moscow in December and with the circumstances at the time, the Soviets fought back.

Because of his distractions, Britain had revived (instead of being totally defeated post-Dunkirk), and eventually (among other factors), Nazi Germany lost.

Two lessons from Hitler’s mistake:

i) It’s not about winning a battle, it’s about winning the war. Sometimes you need to lose a battle in order to win the war.

In fact, it’s even better to win a war with fewer battles, because you can achieve victory with lesser resources used.

6. “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

In politics, your goal is not to fight for the sake of fighting. Your goal is to win, and you can achieve that sometimes even without fighting. The lesser the fights, the better.

That’s one of the few things you did right post-GE13, when you caused PAS to sever ties with Pakatan. Although that was an efficient move, unfortunately your case of corruption was still prevalent that rendered the move insufficient.

ii) Hitler’s second mistake was not focusing. The Axis could’ve won the war by giving the final blow to Britain after the battle of Dunkirk. But instead, he’s distracted to fulfil his ideals on Lebenstraum (by invading Russia).

If you have too many priorities, you will not have a priority.

That doesn’t mean you can’t do many things in one time. You can, but you cannot do many things with the same level of priorities, at the same time.

Focus is important in business. In 1996, Apple was borderline bankrupt. The next year, Steve Jobs returned to the company, and cut 70% of Apple’s product line and got Apple out of side businesses like printers and servers. It saved them. And now they’re one of the most valuable companies in the world.

Apple’s philosophy continued even up until the iPhone-era. They were so focused that they even killed their own success, the iPod, in order to make way for the iPhone.

They were 0% complacent. They know no product lasts forever, so while it hurts to kill their own success, it’s necessary to stay on top in the long term. They know revolutionary smartphones are the next cash cow. That indeed happened.

Now, at the onset, you need to focus on killing your “iPod”, which is your old political strategy – Malay supremacy.

7. “Disorder came from order, fear came from courage, weakness came from strength.”

One of your weaknesses that cost you the last election was the Malay-supremacists. They represented your party. In the Median Voters Theorem, Malay-supremacy would be the ideology that the majority of Malaysians (including the Malays) will not accept.

You must remove these representation from your party. You can still fight for the Malay rights and welfare (hence why you must keep UMNO) without being a Malay supremacist. Thinking the reverse is a false dichotomy.

You must also remove elitism, seniority, and kleptocracy from your party. You must remember that post-GE13, these stratagems will no longer work. You need to elevate your party members based on merits.

Previously, all those stratagems were your strength in maintaining power. You won previous elections because of those. But it has become your weaknesses, for weakness came from strength.

You will face the challenge of convincing the senior and veteran members to no longer lead the party. Just ask them, do they want to be in the front seat of a losing party, or they want to take a back seat of a winning party?

Rebuild UMNO from the ground up. When it is rebuilt, it is time to strike.

8. “So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak.”

When you want to strike, don’t attack the strong army of Pakatan. These are the intellectuals and the pragmatists. They are strong within their community and attacking them is counter-productive; the people will hate you more. Instead, attack the black sheep.

Every party has a black sheep. In yours, you have the Malay-supremacists. That’s why you need to contain them. In PAS, they have the Islamic-extremists.

More importantly, in Pakatan, they have the ineffective-liberals.

These are the subset of liberals who like to create noise and seek attention, regardless of the outcome’s probability.

When effective liberals are solving gender-inequality by fighting domestic-violence and gender pay gap, the ineffective liberal’s fight for feminism is about wearing mini skirts in mosques. That doesn’t help the cause, in fact it dampens it.

When effective liberals is working for racial unity by promoting the citizens to embrace other languages in education and art, ineffective liberals are forcing multiracialism by changing the national identity. That doesn’t help to unite the country, in fact it divides them.

Ineffective liberals are those who are willing to lose the war just because they want to win a single battle. They are the Star-Lords of Pakatan.

They are the people who say it’s okay to step on the national flag:

There are people who say Malay Language can’t be the only official language, and we should question the constitution to change it:

While the content of their discussions might have some merits, the negative effects resulted from their discussion far supersedes those merits. And they didn’t realise that, because they’re ineffective.

They might not be politicians from Pakatan. But that doesn’t matter. You want to strike at what is weak. These are their black sheeps. You will paint a picture, that Pakatan’s rule has enabled this.

You must attack them, directly. Make it visible. When statements like this were voiced, there were no direct responses from the Pakatan leaders. That’s your opportunity.

By attacking the ineffective liberals, you are painting a picture that they are somehow representing Pakatan, due to Pakatan’s silence. Remember,

9. “The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”

Remember I talked about creating a liberal party? Once created, you must enrol as many as effective liberals as you can. Thus, creating the perception that your liberal party is different from Pakatan’s.

Kerana nila setitik rosak susu sebelanga.

Make sure in your liberal party, there is no “nila”. Pakatan failed to do that. They failed to disassociate themselves from the ineffective liberals. You must not repeat their mistake.

10. “It’s more important to out-think your enemy than to outfight him.”

During the Vietnam war, the Vietcong forces managed to defeat the United States, even though they were inferior to the Americans in both man and firepower.

They opted for guerrilla warfare tactics by ambushing US patrols, setting up landmines, and planting bombs in towns. They mingled in with the peasants, wearing ordinary clothes. The American soldiers couldn’t identify who the enemy was. An airstrike would kill their own soldiers.

Resources might not be on their side, but they have unparalleled knowledge or their local terrain, and they used that to win the war. Because they didn’t outfight their enemies, but they outwitted them.

To out-think your enemies, you must employ strategists and mavens at first. In the book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell talks about three different archetypes of people: mavens, connectors, and salespeople.

In your liberal party, make sure you enrol a balanced ratio of mavens, connectors, and salespeople among (only) the effective liberals.

The reason of this ratio is because when it’s in balance, your party will be very influential. The factor of influence is very important, because not only it can reach the urban voters, but the rural voters as well.

Pakatan didn’t control their ratio. They have a surplus of salespeople, but very few mavens. They pander to loud and popular citizens, but not necessarily the smart ones.

The reason you would want to do this, is because once the Pakatan leaders realised what you’re doing, it’s too late for them to dissociate themselves from the ineffective liberals. The influential effective liberals are already in your party.

Because always

11. “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

Where I’m coming from:

Plot twist, I’m not an UMNO supporter. In fact, I only voted twice in my lifetime (yes I’m that young 😉) and at both times I voted for Pakatan. But I’m also not a Pakatan supporter.

This post stems out from my love to neither parties; it’s from my love to Malaysia.

People always thought that comparing a country to a company, the politicians are like the CEOs, whereas the people are the employees. I understand that politicians can be likened to the CEO, but the people are not the employees.

It is my firm believe that in a country, the people are the shareholders. And the CEOs are responsible to their shareholders just like the politicians are responsible to their people. They are entrusted to perform the job.

And without competition, they will be complacent. UMNO needs to fight back to keep Pakatan in check, but they are currently busy doing the old shit.

Do you know why people really love to watch El Clásico? Because it’s a match between Real Madrid and Barcelona. But the way Malaysian politics are now, it’s like watching Real Madrid fighting against QPR (sorry, Tony Fernandes).

A higher competition between political parties has a direct correlation to their awareness to govern better. Because they know, if they fuck up, we will vote the other party.

That’s the very reason why I voted for Pakatan. Because I wanted a change in government. In fact I want a constant change of government so the politicians are constantly alert to the country’s problem.

I don’t want to become a complacent voter. I don’t want to think that because the ruling party is the one that I voted for, things will be constantly okay. Because,

“The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.”
— Hannah Arendt

The unfortunate condition of UMNO right now is they are too weak to keep Pakatan in check. I think because of that, the level of complacency among our politicians is higher than it’s supposed to.

I advise UMNO to step up their game. Delete your previous inefficient rhetoric and move the fuck on to better tactics. Do us the Rakyat a favour, and show us what the party that brought us the independence is all about.

Your move, UMNO.