Khaled needs to appear rebellious for Johor's sake

A friend who is one of the rebels got a bit excited when he shared this story with me earlier today,

Umno must not keep quiet, it's time to act, says Johor MB

excerpts:
In a Facebook posting today, Datuk Seri Khaled Nordin said Umno cannot keep quiet if "corruption becomes a culture or trust is betrayed"
"Umno cannot keep quiet when the party no longer champions the cause of Malays but is instead used to defend a few under the name of loyalty or discipline in adhering to leaders," he wrote. 
"Umno can no longer stand by as an observer. The time has come for Umno to move forward, to be more proactive and dominant," he added.

My friend thought that the rebellion may still be alive.

I had contended earlier that DS Najib Razak and his people had crushed the rebellion by their decisive move of removing all the internal threats against his leadership last week.

Khaled, who is the Johor Menteri Besar and State Umno liasion chief does indeed sounds rebellious in that Facebook posting.

If only he had been more specific...

Still, Khaled's son, Akmal Saufi had also apparently sounded rebellious.

Here is what the young man said as per published by Apanama,

Soalan dari pemimpin muda JOHOR - Derma untuk Najib Razak

Akmal Saufi had posed several hard questions to Najib about the alleged RM2.6 billion wired into the personal account of the prime minister.

In my opinion, those questions are actually more "dangerous" than those raised by former DPM TS Muhyiddin Yassin which caused him to be removed from his government posts last week.

So, is Khaled leading a new wave of rebellion from Johor?

My answer is - NO.

First of all, I never see Khaled as being the rebellious type.

In fact, I find him to be a bit too timid.

As most of us probably know by now, Khaled has been quite overshadowed or even overwhelmed by the Sultan of Johor.

In that sense, I quite pity him.

Honest.

Of late, that's how I feel about him. That's why I have not write much about him and my beloved Johor for quite a while.

I even feel that I have been a bit too hard on the guy in the past.

As to why he suddenly sounded brave - I think the guy is actually trying to be so because the sentiment on the ground among Umno members in Johor is quite bad at the moment.

Muhyiddin, who is still the Umno deputy president is a Johorean and the circumstances surrounding his removal from the DPM and Education Minister posts were rather unpleasant.

Johoreans generally don't take it too kindly when one of them, especially someone like Muhyiddin who once served them as their MB was being treated unfairly or unkindly.

Khaled understand the sentiment well and for that he has to assure Johor Umno members and supporters to remain with the party despite their unhappiness.

To do that, he has to appear sympathetic to the wishes of the party's grassroots in the state.

I think Khaled did well for that.

The unhappy party members and supporters may be appeased for the time being by the fact that there are still leaders who appear to understand their feelings and not try to force them to toe the line all the time despite their unhappiness.

After all, Johor Umno cannot afford to be split over the issues currently plaguing the party.

In the last general election in 2013, the only reason BN managed to stay in power and maintained its two third majority in the Johor state assembly was because the Malays were largely united with Umno as they have done for decades.

That's why Johor is Tiang Seri Umno.

About 83 per cent of them voted for BN.

If that percentage had dropped to a still high 70 per cent, the state would had been lost to the opposition.

What many failed to notice was that Malays actually made up just about 55 per cent of Johoreans.

The largely pro-opposition Chinese made up almost 40 per cent of the State's population.

More than 90 per cent of them voted for the opposition in the last general election. All 14 Chinese majority state constituencies in Johor were won by DAP.

That's why Umno cannot afford to have unhappy members and supporters in Johor.

A large scale boycott of the poll by such unhappy people in the next general election will definitely be disastrous.

If they switch to the opposition, then it will be even worse.

Khaled may probably be the last Umno guy as Johor MB for quite a long time.

Johor may turn out to be another Selangor.