IS UMNO SAYING THEY OPERATE BY TRIAD RULES?

Only once, when the ruling party lost its 2/3 majority was there ever a riot.

Winners don’t have a reason to riot. Only losers do! UMNO saw itself losing when together with MCA and MIC it failed to control 2/3s. May 13 was an UMNO initiated riot. They have even stopped denying this accusation of late.

The opposition has lost in all 50 years. As losers they have conducted themselves very well. NO RIOTS! There have also never been any threat of riots or instability should they lose prior to any election.

Supporters of UMNO/BN and fence sitters are generally fully convinced that there will be instability should UMNO/BN lose its sacred 2/3s or, God forbid, the simple majority! Where does that sense of instability come from?

One time, in 1999 when UMNO felt threatened, it threatened May 13, the Chinese fell for it, UMNO got its two-thirds.

The May 13 threat or bogey man has been a useful weapon and excuse for UMNO to assert itself.

The Bersih Rally of 10/11 debunked the bogey man threat. There is far more cohesion between the races now then ever was. This is what is uncomfortable to UMNO. This is what UMNO does not like.

If racial differences do not work, then the next thing to accentuate is the religious differences. This is a more potent powder keg. UMNO needs racial/religious differences to become an issue more than anyone else does in Malaysia.

Fact is, there is no more May 13 threat. What is another loss for the opposition? Winners don’t need to fight. Winners celebrate!

Denying UMNO its two-thirds will be a victory for the people and the opposition. This will be a loss to UMNO.

Is UMNO suggesting that they are such bad losers that they would start another May 13, as they did the first time around, should they lose their sacred two-thirds?

Strangely other members of the Barisan Nasional are scarcely found employing or issuing the May 13 threat or for that matter the threat of instability. Only UMNO seems to quite comfortably and confidently use this threat or for that matter suggest instability should they not obtain their sacred electoral goals.

What is it that UMNO seems to know that others don't? Why do a large number believe and subscribe to the notion of instability should the "opposition" become the ruling party/(s)?

They may all be very educated and much in the know, but all those very clever sounding people who keep assuring themselves as well as others of the threat to national stability and economic progress forget that they too have been caught up by the way, in both Singapore and Malaysia, the ruling parties, PAP and Barisan Nasiaonal, are interchangeably and synonymously used when referring to the government. It is like as if the government is an extension of these ruling parties. Like as if the government's cheque books are legally and legitimately in the name of these parties. Like as if these parties indeed own and have excusive rights over the use of these cheque books.

In that state of mind, do these people envisage a complete collapse of the entire government machinery? Like as if the police force disintergrates maybe? Of that the armed forces will run riot because their salaries are not paid? Maybe they see the entire finacial system collpse or the hospitals and schools shut down because all the government staff get laid off!!

Well, they should know that when the Aparthied white controlled parties of South Africa lost to the African Nasional Congress of Nelson Mandela, we did not see any of these things happen did we? Sure one would argue that South Africa is a mess today. Are they, therefore, suggesting the return of the Aparthied parties?

India has seen 4 changes of government. It is a big country with more differences demographically in race, religion and language and economic well being. We did not see the kind of instability envisaged by many Malaysians. Australia just had a change in the ruling party that governs. And America goes to the polls later this year. I wonder if anyone issuing the kinds of threats issued by UMNO will be laughed out of there.

Yes, friends, we have all bought into that definition laid out and trumpeted by UMNO and PAP. Only they rule and that is the undeniable truth and reality of it. Hence when they say BN government or the PAP government we all only can see the government as being an extension of these parties. Therefore, even the parties who are not part of the ruling party, only see themselves to be "opposition" parties. Reading their manifestoes and all their various hopes and wishes and promises, we only see them seeing themselves as playing the role of a good opposition. If all they seem to hope for is to add to the number of seats they presently hold in parliament, the goal is now only to be able to present a stroger oppositionto the ruling party. Indeed even in their fouding charter and goals it might seemlike they only want to see themelves play the role of opposition.

What is inconceivable to me is that all these "opposition" parties seem to also be quite at home operating under the label "opposition". Indeed that is the only label that seems to stand out on them. The fact that UMNO has experience as an opposition party is lost on everyone. Yes they are the opposition in Kelantan State and they were for one term the opposition in Terengganu. Yet, I might not be too far wrong to suggest that UMNO might have continued to set the pace even as opposition.

Why? Well, when you know yourself to be opposition and sit comfortably with the label opposition pinned on you, it then follows that you wait on someone to propose before you oppose. If there is no proposals before you there is nothing for you to oppose, is there? In otherwards as "opposition" there is nothing to show in terms of contribution towards nation building.

When America goes to the polls, does anyone talk in terms of opposition? What about Australia or New Zealand or Great Britain? Indeed when they go to the polls, there is no opposition. Indeed there is also no ruling government. There are the parties of course. Except that they are all uniformly cast into right or left. Conservative or Liberal, Republican or Democrats. And of course there others that are in between or on the extreme poles. Of course we cannot forget the Greens as well. Everyone knows where exactly in the spectrum each party resides in and as a citizen you know from your own reckoning of yourselve where it is you belong. (And this secret, just for Malaysians. It is not a sin to belong to any one party or any one pole. And it has nothing to do with your professed or chosen religion or race either).

In Malaysia, can anyone really tell if UMNO/BN is right or left? Can anyone really tell if DAP or PAS or Keadilan is rigth or left? Between the component parties of the BN is everyone on the right or left? I would suggest that UMNO/BN is both left as well as right and they also occupy the centre as well. They are all things to all people, so they claim and so they are perceived to be. As for the rest, they all seem to know that they are the opposition. Meaning opposing everything that comes, whether from the right, left or centre.

We have gangsters running this country and it would seem like the people want that and following the Stockholm Syndrome, having been held captive for so long, we actually seem to subscribe to the cause fo our captors, the gangsters.