Pak Lah Undersieged 3

Pak Lah Ponders His Future

The Malaysian Insider

ANALYSIS

SEPT 20 — An uneasy calm settled upon Malaysia today as speculation over Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s political future went into overdrive.

A decision by Datuk Seri Najib Razak to cancel at the eleventh hour his trip to the Middle East had the effect of sending the Kuala Lumpur Rumour Index upwards with many Malaysians taking it as a sign that a major announcement was imminent.

Much of the debate over Abdullah’s transition plan is being fuelled by proceedings of Thursday’s Umno supreme council meeting which has been leaking by dribs and drabs into the public domain. In a nutshell, several council members urged Abdullah to consider stepping down as the party president now, instead of 2010.

Among those who spoke up were Datuk Shafie Apdal, Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Datuk Rafidah Aziz. Each one of them employed a different tact and tone, with Rafidah speaking with usual candour and Muhyiddin opting for biting comments.

The Malaysian Insider understands that the critics had agreed on Tuesday on a strategy to send a message to Abdullah, and even picked the council member who would kick start the attack. But because Malaysia leaks like a sieve, news of this planned attack soon found their way to several other council members who are Abdullah loyalists.

A few of them met Abdullah before the council meeting and proposed to launch a preemptive attack against Muhyiddin and his ilk. But the PM disagreed, saying that he wanted to know the sentiments of the council.

After the critics had their say, Najib intervened and said that he and Abdullah were in constant discussion over the transition plan, and would continue to do so.

The Malaysian Insider understands that hearing out the supreme council is part of Abdullah’s game plan of gauging the mood of the party. Some of his supporters are telling him to take his time, arguing that he still is in a good position to snare the enough nominations to contest the party president’s position in December.

Any decision on the transition plan is only going to be made after he has received feedback from all the states. Sabah Umno sent word yesterday saying that its support for Abdullah was intact while the view from Selangor after a meeting of division chiefs yesterday was that Abdullah should hand over the controls to Najib as soon as possible.

This process should be completed soon. What is clear is that staying on until 2010 is no longer part of the equation. The only question on the table is this: should Abdullah contest the party elections?