KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 10 - Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is on retirement watch, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has shown his hand and Datuk Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has been told to curb his ambitions.
If Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Pakatan Rakyat members underestimate Umno’s president-elect Datuk Seri Najib Razak and doubt his ability to call the shots, they too will be outflanked and flummoxed by him.
Over the last few months, Najib has shown admirable cunning and exhibited the ability to keep his hand hidden until the last moment before executing a clinical move. The Prime Minister was left with little choice but to hand over power to Najib much earlier than expected, after believing that his deputy would support his desire to stay in office longer.
Now Ahmad Zahid is also contemplating his next step in Umno.The Malaysian Insider has learnt reliably that the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department was told by the DPM this week to withdraw from contesting the party’s number two position and make way for Muhyiddin, who today declared he is in the race for deputy president.
Najib is said to have told Ahmad Zahid that he had a better chance of becoming one of the three vice presidents. The former Umno Youth chief and political secretary to Najib was left stumped because he had been given the impression that the DPM approved of his decision to contest the deputy president’s position, and was secretly rooting for him.
Not so, apparently. It appears that Najib and Muhyiddin belong to the same team.
For a long time, Abdullah believed that he and Najib were a tag team and their opponents in the party were Muhyiddin, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Datuk Seri Rais Yatim. When Abdullah considered sacking Muhyiddin from the Cabinet for alleged insubordination, he was advised by supporters of Najib to take
less drastic steps, including demoting him to a more junior position in the next Cabinet reshuffle.
Only in the last couple of weeks has Abdullah, after being presented with some evidence and ground reports, come to accept that Najib and Muhyiddin have been on the same page for a while.
Muhyiddin’s played his role as the attack dog successfully, constantly calling for an earlier transition and creating the impression that the Umno ground had soured on Abdullah. This perception was pounced upon by
Abdullah critics in the Umno Supreme Council who told him that he would not obtain sufficient nominations from the divisions to defend the party president’s position.
Despite what is being said by Abdullah’s supporters, it is difficult to accept that Najib’s game plan all along was to work with Muhyiddin against the PM. For a long while after March 8, he was willing to allow Abdullah to set his own transition timetable. Even publicly endorsing Abdullah’s plan to step down in July 2010.
The tide turned after the Permatang Pauh by-election. Anwar’s strong showing in the by-election in August; the sense of worsening drift in the country; the feeling that Abdullah was incapable of taking strong decisions; the restlessness among Barisan Nasional component parties and the worry about his own political dreams combined to persuade Najib that the time had come for him to be more clinical with the PM.
Picking Muhyiddin as his running mate was always the obvious choice. The former Johor Mentri Besar has strong support in the party and is more articulate than others vying for the deputy party president’s position - and he enjoys the support of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
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