The House of the Rising Sons
PP3739/12/2004 ISSN 0127 - 5127 / RM3.00 / 2004:Vol.24No.9 Aliran Monthly : Vol.24(9) Page 1 COVER STORY TheThe HouseHouse ofof thethe RisingRising SonsSons What they didn’t debate at the UMNO General Assembly by Khoo Boo Teik n the old BBC TV series, II Yes Minister, the wily but III likeable mandarin, Sir Humphrey Appleby, ex- plained the ‘Law of Inverse Rel- evance’ in government thus: The less you intend to do about something, the more you have to keep talking about it. Or, as Barisan Nasional politicos so cheaply love to taunt their crit- ics and the opposition with it, ‘NATO’ – ‘No Action Talk Only’, except the BN types wouldn’t dare to apply it to UMNO’s first Gen- eral Assembly to be held in 22 years without Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s presiding influence. But look at what transpired, or didn’t, during the Assembly. UMNO endorsed its new Presi- dent, Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and his deputy, Datuk Najib Tun Razak, without any fuss. That, however, was a foregone conclu- sion after the Mahathir-Abdullah transition and the March general election. There being no genuine excite- ment over serious issues, a bit of Predictably, ‘Inverse Relevance’ Failure Baru B-Grade drama was provided by took over, followed by … ‘NATO’: Or Ubat Lama? some complaints that ‘money poli- those complaints were raised and tics’ had influenced the results of dropped with no evidence that For that matter, there was a lot of the party elections at the Vice- real offenders will be identified talk about ‘the Malay agenda’ and President and Supreme Council and real action taken against the New Economic Policy, matters levels.
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