Zahid should learn from the Shahrizat experience....and Najib

 Do you all still remember the cow in condo scandal involving former Wanita Umno chief Shahrizat?

Go to this link if you can't remember - https://ms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kontroversi_Pusat_Fidlot_Nasional

Well, that scandal exploded in 2011. Shahrizat's family got a huge government contract to set up a multi million ringgit cow farm and screwed it up.

But let's go back a few years earlier, to 2008 when Shahrizat, who was then the Wanita Umno deputy chief  lost to Nurul Izzah in Lembah Pantai in the general election that year.

Despite that defeat, she challenged her boss Rafidah for the number one seat of the party wing the next year and the Umno Wanita delegates, who were probably disoriented by the BN's poor performance in the general election decided to give her that post.

Ya, that was stupid.

Najib, who just took over the PM job from Pak Lah also got stupid and made Shahrizat a minister.

Then came the NFC scandal which made Umno looked like cow shit/dung among the public.

Shahrizat pleaded that she was innocent and insisted on continuing as Wanita Umno chief despite clear indications that the party would suffer from that scandal.

Wanita Umno people unfortunately continued to support her.

By the time it was the 2013 general election, it was clear that public anger over the NFC scandal was so bad that Shahrizat can't even find a safe place to contest.

BN did even worse in that election than in 2008 and I believe they lost several hundred thousands of votes just because of the NFC scandal alone.

Unfortunately Umno, once again still refused to learn from that.

Najib and his people insisted for the party to maintain its leadership status quo in the party election in late 2013.

Thanks to that, Shahrizat retained her post as Wanita chief and trumpeted her win in the party polls as an indicator that she was still popular and not guilty of any wrong doing.

Then came the 2018 general election and once again she can't find a safe place to contest yet still insisted that she could lead Wanita Umno to help BN win at the polls.

Stupid isn't it? Someone who can't even find a place to contest leading the Wanita Umno's charge into a general election.

Well, we all know now what happened to BN in that election.

Only when BN was already in the longkang that Shahrizat resigned her Wanita Umno chief post.

Too much too late, if you ask me.

It was a classic case of a leader who was willing to drag the party down by using it for self interest.

Selfish woman - that's how I will always remember Shahrizat.

Umno leaders and members now really need to learn from that. Stop being stupid by thinking that the world revolves around your wishes as elections were not won by just your votes. It's the people votes as a whole which win elections.

I wrote this before - a leader needs to step down/ aside once he/she can't handle a personal problem to the point of it affecting the party.

Now we have Umno president Zahid being attacked on all fronts.

Why? That's because he is a weak point in Umno's effort to revive itself due to his corruption cases and not so great leadership of the party.

His position may not be as bad as Shahrizat's back then but it's bad enough for the party.

The pro-Pribumi Bersatu faction in Umno are now calling for the party election to be held as scheduled later this year and it was quite obvious what they intend to do with it.

Umno will look like shit again if it doesn't hold the party election but if it does, the party will be split going into GE15.

Both ways look bad.

And this choice is ultimately for Zahid to decide.

Unlike Shahrizat, he now still have the time to avoid being always remembered as a selfish person who drag Umno down due to his own personal issues.

I have made the suggestion on what he should do in this previous post about

Umno's PM candidate

Yup, he should name his deputy Mat Hasan as the party's PM candidate.

Let Umno people rally around Mat Hasan who was responsible for the party's revival when he led them to a string of by-election victories before the collapse of the Pakatan Harapan government.

He should also let Mat Hasan handles the coordination of Umno/BN campaign for GE15 as according to his sound judgement.

I'm quite sure the public's perception of Umno will dramatically shift for the better if Zahid does that. 

I don't even mind Zahid continuing as Umno president until the next party polls, which could be held after GE15.

That way Umno could be more focused and not be divided as they enter the electoral battlefield.

If Zahid does all this, he will be remembered as a selfless leader who sacrificed his position to save Umno.

I'm also quite sure Mat Hasan will be there for him when BN is once again in power.

I know, Zahid's "advisers" would definitely insist for him to "soldier on" as what Shahrizat did, but Zahid needs to remember that those people only wanted him to continue being where he is now due to their own selfish interests.

It's the same thing that happened to Najib whose judgement prior to GE14 was clouded by his advisers.

And now that Najib is in deep shit, where are those advisers?

Hopefully Zahid will learn from all those things that happened - from Shahrizat to Najib.

If he doesn't, then that's it - checkmate.

Oh, by the way, I think Zahid's enemies need to do a better job than that audio recording of what supposed to be his conversation with Anwar.

It was even less convincing than the Anwar's and Azmin's videos.

You see, these days the available technology enables people to manipulate stuff and anyone could be depicted as anything.

I made this one myself by just using an app installed in my phone;