UMNO celebrates its 72nd anniversary today, but the joyous occasion is marked with grief after having lost the federal government in a crushing defeat two days ago.

It won only 54 federal seats in the 14th general election, substantially lower than the 88 in the 2013 polls, making Umno president Najib Razak the first sitting party leader and prime minister to lose a general election.

More than that, the party’s survival is at stake. Its political foes say it is illegal as party elections were due by last April 19, although the Registrar of Societies had granted it another year’s extension despite party constitution limits.

Beyond legal concerns, top Umno leaders themselves have drawn power from government posts and lucrative private sector appointments and contracts. This has kept the party going and the many followers and sycophants on the gravy train all these years.

Losing the government means these leaders have lost their source of revenue. They can no longer depend on government largesse, resources, and its network to keep their supporters comfortable or in the high life.

The election debacle also means the top leadership will almost certainly have to go sooner than later. Former party president Abdullah Ahmad Badawi quit a year after losing Barisan Nasional’s parliamentary supermajority in the 2008 polls.

Najib kept power despite losing the popular vote in the 2013 elections, but the 2018 results are a different matter. BN lost the government. Umno lost in its birthplace of Johor and in many strongholds.

Those taking over came in when the party was entrenched in government. Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s 22 years of power and his privatisation programme made many Umno leaders rich through share allotments and contracts given to cronies and proxies.

That has ended now. Umno’s current crop of leaders will find that funds are hard to come by as businessmen will flock to their political foes who now run the country.

They are in the same position as Dr Mahathir’s Bersatu formed three years ago, seeking donations to contest the elections.

Penniless. Powerless. That is Umno’s fate, and it will be some time, perhaps in two or three elections or more, before it can finally turn back the tide and possibly reclaim the government. Or perhaps never. – May 11, 2018.