Who killed Umno ?

The title of this post is similar to the caption of a poster that adorned the wall in the reception area of the law firm that I chambered at in 1990 and later worked as a legal assistant for a number of years, and was later made a partner.

Below that caption was a picture of Bapa Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman.

Regrettably, I cannot recall the full text that appeared in the poster, as a quote from Tunku.

Tunku was of course referring to the events that followed the disgraceful fiasco that the UMNO elections of 1987 was, when Dr M pipped Ku Li to the presidency by a majority of 43 votes, in an election that the losing party alleged was rigged.

The losing team went to court to have the elections declared null and void and, as it turned out, the High Court declared UMNO to be an illegal entity given the existence then, of unregistered branches.

The order of the High Court effectively severed the jugular vein of UMNO.

UMNO was rendered dead!

Dr M’s solution?

He registered UMNO Baru, which is the present day entity everyone calls UMNO, minus the ‘Baru’.

The decision of the High Court was appealed to the Supreme Court.

If the appeal succeeded, it would mean that the original UMNO would be resurrected.

This would then mean the end for Dr M as, by the terms of the constitution of the original UMNO, Dr M having already joined a new party, to wit, UMNO Baru, his membership in the original UMNO would ipso facto terminate.

Dr M could not allow this to happen.

In the Supreme Court, Tun Salleh, it seems, was minded to fix the UMNO appeal to be heard by a full bench of the Supreme Court.

This was bad news for Dr M.

The more judges sitting to hear the appeal, the more difficult to fix the outcome of the same.

That was why Tun Salleh had to go.

So that UMNO would remain dead and buried.

Tunku was clear in his mind that Dr M, for his own selfish reasons, had dealt the fatal blow on the UMNO that was formed in 1946.

I thought you might want to be appraised of this perspective given the take by Rocky that it was Ku Li who caused the big UMNO split two decades ago.

UMNO was split when the party when to the polls in 1987.

There was a already a Team A and a Team B.

UMNO was already split by then.

The narrow margin of Dr M’s victory is a reflection of the extent of the divide that already existed within the membership of UMNO.

Should Ku Li be blamed for this?

Or was there a revolt within the party against the leadership of Dr M? And should this, then, be rightly seen as the cause of the divide?

If you want a lit bit more background to this, have a read from wikipedia HERE .