Wanita Umno Revisited

Annie got tired of Umno decide to kacau Sin Chew as a hobby.

Well, I got tired of Umno and DS Shahrizat a long time ago.  She is just the most obvious example of the "tak sedar diri and mabuk kuasa" syndrome within the upper echelons of that political party.

I would say that the majority of the so-called Umno leadership are inflicted by the same syndrome.

We have seen the decay within the Pemuda wing and we are now seeing Wanita going the same way as Pemuda.

What makes it worse for Umno is that Wanita is the backbone of its grassroots programmes and their acceptance at the grassroots level is much closer associated with the public acceptance of  BN.

Worse still, is the lack of new blood in Wanita leadership at the middle and grassroots levels, or more specifically the demise of Puteri leadership once they become of age and graduate to Wanita.

Puteri was supposed to be the training ground for young women who are supposed to be groomed as future leaders of the Wanita wing.

They are supposed to bring youth, new ideas, innovations and vibrancy and to continue making Wanita more relevant to a larger crowd.

In order to do this, Wanita should be working with Puteri, grooming and training them to succeed them and eventually make way for new blood to invigorate the movement.

This is obviously not happening.

Puteri seems to have less success in the transition into Wanita.  I think this is best illustrated by what is happening between DS Shahrizat and DS Azalina in the fight for Wanita leadership.

This is a fight between a sitting MP who won convincingly, a single woman, relatively younger and with a track record of not only leading the Puteri movement but was responsible in enabling its formation, who have some baggage herself but has no sufficient impact to kill her political career, against the incumbent Wanita leader who lost her constituency to the opposition but was given a position in government only because she was the Wanita Head and promptly lost that because of a scandal that has also become a major liability to Umno and BN.

DS Shahrizat not immediately dissociating herself and her family problems from Umno, never acknowledging that she is a massive liability to the organisation, that she was willingly subjecting Umno to the humiliation of having one of its top leaders being associated with such a damning scandal, clinging on to power by whatever means, is a problem in itself.

What makes it dire is the support of other women in Wanita who cling to her in fear of change, living in a cocoon that insulate them from the realities on the ground.

This same "ostrich with head in the sand" syndrome is the real reason why Umno will not be able to transform into something more relevant to the public.