Sack him you could but not disgrace him

There was endless calls coming from Johoreans commenting on the political happenings in Johor arising from the sacking of Tan Sri Muhyiddin. So we decided to meet some at a halfway place out of town after prayers yesterday. This posting expressed those views.

Muhyiddin was in Johor last weekend and was invited as audience of His Highness the Sultan of Johor. There was no communique from the meeting and effort to nose around had been futile. nevertheless, there have been many developments from Johore since then.

Most interesting was RTM1 news coverage yesterday to Muhyiddin speech at Pagoh's UMNO Division meeting of the wings. He replied resignation calls by a certain division head of an opposition party within the state of Selangor by saying he will not resign.

There is no reason to do as he has never betrayed the party. However, there is every reasons of political and economic survival and expediency by the person calling his resignation.

The indication from the posting by RPK and certain players is that it is leading towards Muhyiddin's  sacking based on the excuse of the conspiracy to topple the government. If that is the psywar game being payed, they may have misread the happening on the ground in Johor. 

The Johoreans are not interested to seek seccesion or disagree with Muhyiddin sacking from his position as Deputy Minister. Bangsa Johor, the latest buzzword in Johor after the earlier buzz of "luaskan kuasa" as taken from the state anthem, understand the prerogative of Prime Minister to select his team.

As one party activist from Tenggara who claimed to have spoken to quite a number for Divisional Heads, they are only asking not to disgrace him. He is still a legitimately elected party Deputy President.

Allow him to help and give him a role in reviving the party.

As one UMNO political operator from Muar was saying, Muhyiddin's concern was on the party and never did he tried to pry into the 1MDB affair. If he had done so, it was because he was expressing the heat Divisional Head was getting from UMNO grassroot and public.

The information in the cabinet fact book are too short to answer for the many issues raised by The Edge, which Muhyiddin took the effort to study. The UMNO grassroot leaders had no answer to the viral Whas App and Twitter messages of viraled blog and FB links.

Frankly, hardly 10% of the public understand the 1MDB fairly and objectively. If they had been honest enough, they would have given both sides of the issue and would qualify themselves as not knowing the full story.

Only last night, we told one NGO activist who has an active FB of his organisation making statements and taking positions on 1MDB purely because they follow and believe two person. 

Since his sacking from the position of Deputy President post, many seemed to forget that Muhyiddin first word on 1MDB was towards solving the problem from being blamed at Dato Najib.

After consultation with Dato Najib, he asked for the sacking of the members of the Board of Directors. In any organisation, the buck would stop at the Board of Directors. It was only after that statement came the incident of the viral video of his speech at Janda Baik.

There are those that prepared a sack script Muhyiddin to now say he was not sacked because of 1MDB. They may have realised that the Muhyiddin had not said something any different from the closed door explanation by Najib to UMNO Divisional head.

However, they had not done their part to explain to the ground for fear of being queried by the increasingly powerful branch chief and difficult to control grassroot at branches level.

Those up there in the UMNO hierarchy do not seem to understand Johorean well.

They will not rebel and no such thing as seccesion. The proud royals and people of Johor are not overly sensitive to a Johorean being thrown out of political office but it must be done with proper decorum and honourably done.

While Johoreans will not rebel and realise the need for unity to keep power in Johor within UMNO, one must not forget that Johoreans are capable at sending protest signals. Johor registered the highest number of undi rosak in 2008.

Thus the reason for MB Dato Khaled Nordin's and his son's statement. He may have tried hard to contain the resentment by keeping it within the family. And the one to reply his son was Khaled's former mentor, Tan Sri Shahrir Samad.  

The reaction in UMNO towards Muhyiddin has been less than mature. During the so-called dictatorship of Tun Dr Mahathir, his political opponents were still opening Divisional meetings. Why the need to cancel his invitations?

For that matter, it was equally immature of Dato Shafie Apdal to cancel his invitation to Dato Najib to open the Semporna Division. Allow Najib to explain.

Khairy showed much maturity, brevity and honesty to make the statement that the attack on Muhyiddin could split UMNO.  Only thing is we do not believe Muhyiddin will ever want to split the party with the challenge on leadership and hope fully we are not wrong.

Certainly we believe we are unlikely to be wrong because Muhyiddin have been tested and proven over decades of political existence to give priority for the party over his personal ambition. The track record speaks for itself.

Muhyiddin has expressed his wishes that he be allowed to help strengthen the party. Najib needs someone out of his own faction to attract support to himself. To regain back the trust deficit, he needs every help and the next election will be a close one where every inches counts.

As it is, there are people around Najib that seemed to be making new enemies by the day. That is no way to bring back confidence and trust. 

There is a distinct differences between Muhyddin and the other critics of Najib. Unlike the opposition or Tun Dr Mahathir, Muhyiddin did not raise the issue of 1MDB to bring Najib down but for the sheer concern of the party's declining trust deficit.

Someone is needed to think and focus on the party. And someone need to be reminded of guiding principle of order in the condition of the ruled over the ruler in the cultural social contract between Sang Sapurba and Demang Lebar Daun.