Last AGM for Pak Lah as President of UMNO and PM of Malaysia/ 侧写拉伯

I attended the opening ceremony of the UMNO AGM. This will be the last AGM by Pak Lah as the President of UMNO and PM of Malaysia.

As the outgoing PM, the speech was short, which is about 45 minutes (his perennial cough was a distraction). It was a dignified farewell address with a lot of advises to UMNO members. UMNO as rightly said faces a life and death situation. It has to change or else it would be changed from the ruling party to the opposition. The same applied to all the Peninsular BN component parties of MCA, MIC, Gerakan, PPP.

Pak Lah rightly pointed out that UMNO must not practice discrimination to the extent than the non-Malays view it as a racist party. PAS in the name of Islam, can talk about Muslim rights and non-Muslim, without incurring such condemnnation. A lot of people seem to forget that all Malays are Muslim as stipulated in the Federal Constitution. One PR MP once said in Parliament that he is a Muslim first and a Malay second.

Pak Lah will be remembered as the PM that provided the space for open dissent. He is down to earth and it is difficult not to like his friendly disposition. As a patient man, he allows cabinet ministers the freedom to discuss and argue their papers. However, I noticed while he is firm, he is not decisive. A poor memory and bad time management does not help. Personally, I find him to be very patient and kind with a lot of fatherly advice.

When I resigned last year, I went back to see Pak Lah to request him to help me to honour all the pledges of peruntukan that I have announced as MP and Minister. I was worried then if I did not honour those allocations, then it would just became an empty promise. By then I have no allocation since I eased to be MP. Pak Lah kindly granted my requests and I am proud to note when I resigned; I have no outstanding debt to my voters in my constituency. To be frank, he was touched by my requests and sense of responsibility.

I will not be doing any posting for the next few days as I am travelling to Kedah and Perak for the by-election.

阿都拉即将卸任。我出席了那场他最后一次以巫统主席及马来西亚首相身份，主持的巫统常年代表大会。

他的开幕演词很短，大约只有45分钟（他惯性的咳嗽一直干扰着）。那是一个语重心长的告别演说，苦口婆心地向巫统党员劝说。

巫统正处在生死的岔口，它必须改变，否则它的执政地位将被反对党取代。大马半岛的全体国阵成员党包括马华、印度国大党、民政党及人民进步党亦是，它们都必须改变。

阿都拉清楚指出，巫统不能奉行歧视文化，不能让非马来人认为它是一个种族主义的政党。今天，打着伊斯兰教名义的回教党，竟能高谈回教徒权益而不被非回教徒谴责。

拉伯卸任后，人们都会记得，他开放舆论空间容纳政治异见。他和蔼可亲，我们很难不为他的亲民风采动容。阿都拉很有耐心，他允许内阁部长自由讨论甚至辩论会上提出的议题。然而，我发现拉伯处理事务时态度坚定，但却不果断。记性衰弱及时间管理不当也是问题之一。我个人对拉伯的印象是，他非常有耐心，像长辈一样经常给后臂给很多忠告。

去年我辞职后，曾亲自见拉伯，要求他协助兑现我当部长及国会议员时所承诺的拨款。我担心如果没有在任内兑现有关承诺，已宣布的拨款将沦为空头支票。我想拉伯当时是被我的责任心打动，而准许我的请求。因此，我能安心离职，至少我没有拖欠选区和选民，这已足以让我宽心。

接下来的日子，我会在北上吉打及霹雳州助选，容我稍后再聊吧。