What went wrong with Umno

Arrived home just now about 3am.

Still can't sleep.

Probably due to all the kopi O that I drank earlier.

Had a mini reunion with three of my former comrades during the defense of Johor for the last general election in 2013.

The four of us were in the thick of things in Gelang Patah trying to help former Johor MB TS Abdul Ghani Othman in the fight against DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang in the Chinese majority constituency.

As it was, the whole thing was a mission impossible and we lost.

But it was a fond memory that we all cherished.

We believed that it was a good cause as Ghani was making his final sacrifice for Umno as Johor Menteri Besar by trying to stem the Chinese tsunami at that time.

Ghani was our inspiration. He is a good guy and was a great Umno leader, at least in our opinion.

We laughed as we recalled the midnight after nomination day when we had to put up posters along the road into the Gelang Patah town because the BN election workers there went mysteriously missing that night and the whole place was swamped by DAP posters.

There were several other such incidences which these days we remember with much fondness.

It was an experience that we shall never forget.

Except for one of us who actually worked for Ghani, the rest were volunteers.

We also talked about the present.

It can't be help, we did talk about the current troubles faced by PM DS Najib Razak.

One of my friends asked what I think of the whole thing.

I said I'm hoping that the allegations against Najib were false.

I still find it hard to believe that he stole those billions of ringgit.

You have to understand that I have been supporting Najib since way before he became the prime minister.

It's not easy to now suddenly think of him as a crook.

Furthermore, it would have been too terrible to think that I had been conned by Najib who all these while I see as a kind and gentle guy.

I admit that I'm not happy with him over so many things such as his choice of advisers as well as other bad things his people had done, particularly that affect myself.

But I have all the while refrained from attacking him due to my perception of him being a good guy since many years ago.

Maybe I'm wrong but I believed Najib still deserves to be treated fairly.

My friends also asked my opinion on the way

(At this point I fell asleep....now I'm awake, just had my sahur and continuing this posting)

Najib's people were handling the crisis.

I think they screwed up a lot.

The decision to demonize former PM Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for leading the campaign against Najib was the worst.

Najib should had been advised by his expensive advisers and consultants to engage the old man instead.

Now it's too late for that.

The damage, especially among the fence sitters is now too extensive.

Even if later on Najib is found to be innocent, I think it's almost impossible to repair the damage in time for the next general election.

The four of us paused our discussion for a while when we all agreed with that conclusion.

Then one of us asked, what had gone wrong with Umno that it has now come to this stage.

I thought hard for an answer as the others came up with their own personal theories.

When it's my turn to give my idea, I pointed to my heart and said,

"Too many of them don't have this when they said they were berjuang for agama, bangsa and tanah air."

Okay, I need to do the necessary for Subuh now.

Have a good day everyone.