BY now the euphoria surrounding Pakatan Harapan’s historic win has died down. Markets have perhaps priced in this regime change. Umno is slowly beginning to get used to being the opposition. Having over 50-seats in parliament, Umno remains a very much relevant and is the most dominant single-party. In the next foreseeable future, they are arguably Malaysia’s only hope of sustaining a healthy two-party democracy (ironic, I know).

We are now seeing disturbing trends from pro-democracy, pro-Pakatan Harapan supporters; who are pushing for the complete annihilation of Umno for all of their alleged excesses. Other groups are calling for moderate, liberal Malay Muslims to rally behind Pakatan Harapan in an effort to neutralise the purported Umno-PAS alliance – which could potentially result in a far-right extremist opposition alliance as the next democratic choice Malaysians would have.

While I can empathise with them, I cannot fully agree with that notion. To me, above and beyond winning the next elections, Malaysians must transcend beyond partisan lines and strongly demand for a fresh leadership change in Umno that are free from any legitimate scandals and do not carry the same level of arrogance we saw in the previous line ups – and we must do this in the name of solidifying the democratic call of having a strong and viable opposition alliance. Leaders like Zahid Hamidi, Nazri Aziz, Bung Mokhtar, Hishamuddin Hussein; and contenders like Jamal Yunos and the infamous blogger Papagomo must be booted out from the get-go. For the sake of a better Malaysia, Umno needs to undergo significant reformation and not fall prey to the two Es. Retaining the same leaders and the same style will lead them to extinction, and partnering up with PAS will potentially push them to extremism. Both these outcomes are unfavourable to a democratic Malaysia, and should not be the basis of any future governments coming into power.

In order to prevent this, Umno needs a strong, capable, and potentially young leader. It is understandable for Umno to retain some level of feudalism within its ranks, hence it could be difficult to accept a younger leader like Khairy Jamaluddin, but I do feel that is exactly what they need. The next best leaders are Tengku Razaleigh and Mustapa Mohamed, who lacks the charisma and energy that Khairy has, but qualifies in political experience and capability of handling the feudalistic nature of the grassroots. Yes, one might argue that these three leaders did not get into the rakyat’s good books for their“deafening” silence on the 1MDB issue; but the political arena is a choice between the lesser of two evils. And within the Umno fold, these three are undoubtedly the best that can be put forward for a newly found democratic Malaysia.

At the end of the day, most Malaysians want viable options. We are a peace-loving, democratic, multiracial society. Umno needs to transcend its comfort zone and resist the temptation to court PAS and become a single race-single religion party, as that only leads down the extremism path sooner or later. We need to transcend partisan lines and strive to have a strong multiracial opposition for check and balance. Let us not forget that we are effectively rebuilding the country. We may take a dip in the satisfaction pool for a bit, but let’s not get too comfortable in it for Malaysia could again deviate down the path of a failed state for lack of a viable opposition.

* Farid Abdul Manan is an engineer by training, a general manager by employment, and a keen observer of Malaysian politics by inclination. 

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.