alaysia’s Prime Minister, Najib, has a big problem in Johor.
The word is out from within, that a movement of support for the just-revoked deputy Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin is taking shape, and that the powerful Johor division of the United Malays National Organisation is at a boiling point.
This has been strengthened by a call from Johor Mentri Besar, Khalid Nordin, for Umno Vice-President Hishammuddin Hussein to take the lead at national level to speak up for the party. Nordin wants Hishamuddin to move against Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Hishamuddin is Najib’s cousin. Both men had their fathers lead the country as prime minister, and this has reinforced the duo’s positions as part of the high level echeleon within Umno.
The Johor Umno is rigged with trouble since the removal of Muhyiddin as deputy PM, said an observer to The Week Review.
“Khalid Nordin is spearheading a campaign to rid the Umno of its ills, and one of these is the allegation of corruption and the weakness of the political organisation,” said the observer.
In less than a week, the MB has urged party members to act in order to prevent issues affecting the party to fester any longer, showing an urgency in the need to redress the party’s image.
“The situation is dire, as it involves other powerful figures in the state,” said the observer.
Last week, anti-Najib banners were unfurled in Johor in public places, including highways and bus stops.
On Sunday, Najib officiated the Pasir Gudang Umno division’s annual general meeting — reportedly meeting with a muted response.
The powerful Johor royal family have also made online posting viewed as veiled criticism of Najib and his wife, Rosmah.
Johor is Umno’s biggest voter bank, but even the stronghold is not invulnerable from the opposition coalition’s push to take over the state.
In the 2008 elections, Barisan Nasional had won 50 seats, with the DAP gaining four seats and PAS winning two.
Back then, deposed DPM Anwar Ibrahim’s Party Keadilaan Rakyat did not have a chance against hardline BN supporters in Johor.
In 2013, Pakatan Rakyat registered major gains in Johor in the local assembly elections, winning 18 seats, spearheaded by PKR, still seen as a splinter Umno party by Johoreans. Umno won 32 of the 38 seats won by the ruling coalition.
That year, BN won 53.99% of votes in the state assembly election, and PR won up to 45% of the vote.
Barisan National won 21 Parliamentary seats — but the PR coalition won five, a feat it had never achieved before in the state.
As it is, Umno is bound to face stiffer challenges in the 2018 elections — with voters riled over allegations of a corruption cover-up amid blurred lines over RM2.6 billion banked into Prime Minister Najib Razak’s account.
The funds, that were said to be traced by investigators prying into 1Malaysia Development Bhd, are to be a donation from the Middle East to the Umno party.
But even this statement is being contested by rebel former ministers.
With rising concerns on 1MDB and perceptions of inadequacy in Najib Razak’s explanations regarding the ‘donation’ from the Middle East, Umno now faces an internal rift it has never seen since Anwar Ibrahim was jailed in 1998.
Since 2008, Barisan National has lost its grip on two of Malaysia’s richest states, Penang and Selangor.
Johor will not be immune to national sentiment over debt-ridden 1MDB, the RM2.6 billion traced to the Prime Minister’s accounts, the arrest of Malaysian Anti Corruption Commision officials and their transfer to the PM’s office — as well as the Cabinet reshuffle.
All these are seen as attempts to cover up what the public has now perceived as gross wrong doings by the ruling coalition.
It is worth noting that the movement to clean Umno of its vagaries is not new.
Calls to remove Najib as Umno president have been led by former Malaysian stateman and political stalwart Tun Mahathir Mohamad, who was also the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia.
Mahathir has garnered sufficient support within the Umno and outside the party sphere, for his allegations to be a concern for Najib.
Khalid Nordin views the problems facing Umno as cancerous — and has urged Umno leaders to admit the party is in bad shape.
The Johor MB is not alone and has the support of Muhyiddin Yassin, who has made known his intentions to cling to his post as deputy president of Umno despite attempts to oust him, sources who spoke to The Week Review said.
Yassin also seems to have the support of former Cabinet colleague Mohd Shafie Apdal, who was revoked from his Ministership in the recent Cabinet shake-up.
Like Yassin, Shafie is also an Umno Vice-President, hailing from East Malaysia.
Shafie Apdal has contested the fact that the RM2.6 billion was a donation — there has never been mention within Umno of such a donation from the Middle East, he claims.
Najib fired back by saying on Saturday that the party should trust him with donations and the party’s expenses.
But for how long?
