Muhyiddin’s dismissal and Umno’s culture of repression

When Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin's voiced his dissatisfaction about the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) affair, he was voicing what was possibly the sentiments of the entire nation.

He did not point fingers at anyone nor did he even suggest any foul play was afoot. He simply suggested that an explanation must be given to the public. And he is right.

After all, with the Malaysian public buckling under the pressure of the GST, they were less inclined to be forgiving about 1MDB.

That was basically all Muhyiddin said and there should have been no problem at all since we do live in a democracy, in case anyone has forgotten. Or at least the pretence of one. This would be true under any normal circumstances.

Sadly, we are not dealing with normal circumstance. We are dealing with Umno.

The culture of repression in Umno is so severe that even with Muhyiddin's relatively benign suggestion, he found himself without his position as deputy prime minister the very next day.

In social media, there was already wind of this last week, that Muhyiddin may find himself without any Cabinet post soon given his "outspoken-ness".

Social media commentators were taken aback by his candid suggestion. Again, not due to the fact that his comment was anything controversial.

However, due to Umno's culture of repression, even an innocuous comment such as his is relatively like a call to overthrow the government.

I am no big fan of Muhyiddin. I have been following his rhetoric in the Ministry of Education for some time and find his lack of assurance regarding the use of the English medium to be terribly disconcerting.

He had been unable to weather the storm regarding PPSMI (the teaching of Science and Maths in English policy) and consequently went back on this policy which had been going for almost a decade before.

In so doing, he effectively interrupted the process which could have revolutionised a new generation of Malaysian students. This does not bode well for his integrity as a statesman.

He also claimed that he is a Malay first before being a Malaysian. Of course, this was not taken too well by the opposition.

What did he mean by this exactly?

In a political context, it is very likely that he meant that he would put the welfare of the Malays before that of the Malaysians in general.

This is not the mark of a national leader. He was the deputy prime minister of the entire Malaysia after all, not only of Malays.

Having said the above, he did not deserve the callous and off-handed treatment given to him.

Following his dismissal from the Cabinet, he was replaced by Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, the man who probably has the audacity to tell the entire nation they were dreaming if they physically saw his boss doing something wrong.

This was also the man who once threatened to bring The Edge to book then when asked which bit of news got them into trouble, actually said "siapa makan cili, dia terasa pedas" (whoever eats the chilli, he or she should feel the heat).

In other words, The Edge should know which article got it into trouble. Does this man have no concept of the "burden of proof"? But these are the type of people required for the new Cabinet to function.

Even people who were previously relatively more capable than the usual Umno cabal of buffoonery, such as Azalina Othman, are now coming out with puerile statements vis-à-vis the 1MDB scandal.

Such statements simply serve to undermine not only her integrity but that of Umno's and the government itself.

What concerns me most in this whole fiasco is the unbridled repression Umno practices though. That, to me, is utterly undemocratic and simply cannot be practised by any political party, let alone a ruling one.

How can it possible that, if a member of government or party is dissatisfied with a particular situation, he has to put his conscience to bed or risk losing his position?

This is not democracy but fascism and any party or government which practices this must not be allowed to remain in power for five years before the next general election, let alone 60 years – the length of time Umno has been allowed to run our nation into the ground.

We need to learn a valuable lesson from this before we unceremoniously cast Umno into the Hades of political history.

The lesson is simple – we must never vote any party into power if they practise the culture of repression.

If a party is truly dedicated to the welfare of the nation, then it simply has no reason to punish any member who voices his dissatisfaction towards anything. Punishing them or removing them only shows that there is something amiss.

We the Rakyat need to ensure that the party we choose never stoops to this degrading level of politics. – August 5, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.