The political circus has come to town!

For eight months from August to March next year, the famed Moscow Circus is performing in ten cities in Malaysia, thrilling Malaysians with “dazzling and raw-dropping performances packed full of artistry, hilarity and world-class athletic skills”.

However UMNO and Barisan Nasional might have upstaged the Moscow Circus in the past few days with many “dazzling and raw-dropping performances” in their political circus!

Just to cite a few such super-circus performances:

1. UMNO President Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi in his inaugural UMNO Presidential speech called on members to remain patient and not to defect as they will soon be a hot commodity with the Pakatan Harapan which is expected to implode due to infighting. As a result, the Pakatan Harapan government can be dissolved at any time.

But it is UMNO which imploded first, with the resignation of five UMNO MPs, two of whom where former UMNO Ministers.

Apart from a lonely voice, the UMNO leadership seems to fully behind Zahid in the illusion that UMNO is a government-in-waiting!

2. Zahid announcement that he is open to forming a unity government with any Harapan party while at the same time, actively flirting with the PAS leadership for a “Malay unity” alliance, although his No. 2, UMNO Deputy President Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan in his UMNO closing speech just before Zahid that UMNO delegates should stop dreaming about a unity government.
3. Zahid’s allegation that other races are prejudiced against Malays and will not open up UMNO.

Is this true, and if so, it is the best proof of UMNO’s greatest failure in nation-building and the utter irrelevance of UMNO despite being in power for six decades.

Rejecting proposals for UMNO to adopt a multi-racial face, Zahid said Malaysian society had in the past and until this day lived in their respective communities and must remain so.

This is a wrong recipe for Malaysian nation-building, which should ensure that Malaysians, whether Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans or Ibans should cease to live in a world of their own ethnicity, but must interact with other races and religions to tolerate, accept, respect and understand the diversity of different races, religions, languages and cultures which meet in confluence in Malaysia, as without such tolerance, acceptance, respect and understanding, Malaysian will fail as a nation!

4. The recent unveiling of the Barisan Nasional Opposition Shadow Cabinet by the UMNO Secretary-General Tan Sri Annuar Musa comprising UMNO, MCA and MIC MPs, although fresh in everybody’s mind was Annuar’s caustic warning to MCA to “buy their own tombstones” instead of continuing to be a “cripple” and having to be carried by UMNO.
5. A Wanita UMNO member created a sensation at the UMNO General Assembly when she turned up with 'MACC lockup' orange-coloured T-shirt.

If all UMNO leaders who had participated in corruption have to turn up at the UMNO General Assembly in the orange-coloured MACC uniform, how many of them will be at the UMNO General Assembly in the MACC garb?

6. UMNO General Assembly yesterday had a tearful episode when “Najib lets tears flow as Umno assembly closes”.

In a Facebook post later, Najib apologised for losing his composure and wrote: “All these had been a test from Allah, and now I know I am not alone. I have all of you with me giving strength and support.”

It is understandable for Najib to cry over his personal ordeal, but did he cry for the children and children’s children of the 30 million Malaysians who will have to pay for his monstrous depredations and corruption from the 1MDB scandal, beggaring the country with tens of billions of ringgit?

Can the UMNO President and UMNO national leaders explain why the UMNO General Assembly failed to adopt a resolution condemning and sacking Datuk Seri Najib Razak from UMNO for the international 1MDB corruption and money-laundering scandal and the national disservice of transforming Malaysia into a global kleptocracy?

Why the UMNO General Assembly failed to make a clean break with the past, and publicly apologise for all lies, falsehoods and fake news unleashed against the then Opposition, including the DAP?

With the publication of the two books on the 1MDB, “The Sarawak Report – the Inside Story of the 1MDB Expose” by Clare Rewcastle Brown and “Billion Dollar Whale” by Wall Street Journal reporters Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, no one in the UMNO leadership especially the former UMNO Ministers can continue to claim ignorance of the criminal monstrosity and moral turpitude of the 1MDB kleptocratic and money-laundering scandal.

By the UMNO General Assembly’s failure to condemn the 1MDB scandal, the entire UMNO is complicit in continuing to aid and abet Najib in the 1MDB scandal. If only UMNO and the Barisan Nasional parties could also be charged in court for being complicit in aiding and abetting Najib in the 1MDB scandal!