KUALA LUMPUR – It is set to be a nail-biting next couple of months for Umno’s Khairy Jamaluddin, whose political fate hangs in the balance after a supposed raid on his own Rembau parliamentary seat by his party’s leader Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan.
For Khairy, the thought of having to vacate the only constituency he has ever contested in would be daunting. He has held the seat for three consecutive terms since making his electoral debut in 2008.
With the 15th general election (GE15) likely to take place before the end of the year, Khairy will now wait with bated breath for Umno’s full list of candidates to see if he will still have a role to play in Malaysia’s mainstream politics.
Like the uncertainties surrounding his current predicament, his entry into the political fray over two decades ago was similarly fuelled by much speculation, with many attributing his rise through the party’s ranks to his father-in-law, then prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Too valuable to put into cold storage
Born abroad and having spent the best part of his early years on foreign soil, Khairy returned to Malaysia in the late 1990s before serving as special officer to Abdullah during his stint as deputy prime minister, and temporarily as deputy principal private secretary when the latter rose to be prime minister in 2003.
Most notably, Khairy was dubbed the leader of the infamous “fourth-floor boys” during Abdullah’s prime ministership, in reference to the young aides operating a storey below the prime minister’s office in Putrajaya who were alleged to have run the show and called the shots on various policy and administrative matters.
Former DAP chairman Lim Kit Siang even once labelled the Umno lawmaker as the most powerful 28-year-old in Malaysia who “controls and manipulates the prime minister’s moves and decision-making”.
This perfectly showcased the alleged influence that Khairy has had since his earlier days in active politics, although he has consistently denied charges of him pulling the strings behind the scenes.
He had also remained steadfast when things were not going his way.
One example of this was when Datuk Seri Najib Razak overlooked him when appointing his first cabinet members in April 2009, despite Khairy being the then Umno Youth chief.
Interestingly, Khairy’s deputy Datuk Seri Razali Ibrahim was named the deputy youth and sports minister.
Khairy’s resoluteness was however rewarded when he was finally appointed as youth and sports minister following the general election in 2013.
But as the clock ticks closer to GE15, he could now face the prospect of missing out altogether, an unfathomable possibility just months ago.
There have been murmurs that Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi is looking to remove Khairy from the picture as a message to those aligned to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, who has been reported to lead a separate faction within the party.
But in the bigger Umno picture, dropping such an invaluable asset makes little to no sense.
The three-term lawmaker is well-received and should be able to woo voters from among fence-sitters and neutrals in non-traditional Umno seats, particularly among the non-Bumiputeras – although his appeal among the rural Malays remains in question.
He is to a large extent respected by the opposition, generally perceived to have been clean of scandals, and is today deemed as one of the few progressive, moderate leaders within his party.
On top of this, Khairy has shown that he can be his own man if the situation calls for it. This was evinced in his verdict that Barisan Nasional (BN) lost the last general election due to the 1Malaysia Development Bhd scandal and not because of lies spewed by Pakatan Harapan (PH).
He has also not held back from going against his own party leaders, including when he expressed dissatisfaction at Najib’s appointment as BN adviser in 2019, and contested the party presidency against Zahid in 2018, who was then the party number two.
In short, he is seen to have the makings of the future face of Umno.
That he came in second in a recent survey on who Malaysians favour as prime minister, just behind opposition leader and PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, says as much about his pull factor among the masses.
So, if Umno does nominate Khairy in another constituency, what options are then available to him?
Putrajaya the likeliest and best option?
For the past couple of years, speculation from Putrajaya has been that the administrative capital has been earmarked by Umno for Khairy to contest.
The move will supposedly see the party dropping the incumbent Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, who has been mired with graft allegations, for a younger, capable candidate in Khairy’s mould.
Such a manoeuvre would benefit the party on two fronts – fortifying its position in a key constituency with a majority composition of civil servants, and gearing Khairy for a more prominent role in the federal government.
The constituency will also not be foreign to him.
He has spent the last two-and-a-half years operating out of the constituency under his capacity as minister in two portfolios, held consecutively – as science, technology and innovation minister and as health minister – which notably resulted in the successful Covid-19 vaccine roll-out and Malaysia’s move to endemicity.
Granted, all this hinges on whether Zahid would want to grant such influence to Khairy – an individual with political ambition who had as recently as 2018 unsuccessfully challenged the former for the Umno presidency.
There is also the issue of whether Tengku Adnan is prepared to relinquish Putrajaya, where he has won four consecutive times.
Other seats in Negri Sembilan
Rumours also have it that Khairy may be asked to remain in Negri Sembilan to contest in constituencies like Port Dickson or Seremban, which are currently held by PH heavyweights.
The MP for Port Dickson is none other than Anwar and for Seremban is DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke.
Khairy would have to overturn a ridiculously huge majority to be elected, unless Anwar or Loke decide to move elsewhere – the former has been rumoured to contest in Tambun in the coming polls.
A more realistic option would be to place him in one of two former Umno strongholds, Kuala Pilah or Tampin – both of which are neighbouring constituencies to Rembau – which only fell to the opposition’s hands during the political tsunami of 2018.
Kuala Pilah is currently held by Bersatu’s Datuk Eddin Syazlee Shith, who won the seat by a meagre 200 votes, while Tampin was won by Amanah’s Datuk Hasan Bahrom with a majority of only 1,002.
Utilise his pull factor in mixed constituencies
One other possibility for Khairy is that he parachutes into a foreign constituency altogether, in Umno’s attempt to recapture support from seats currently under PH’s belt.
Preferably, the party would want to bank on his popularity in more urban, mixed seats, particularly those which were marginally decided, including ones won by some of the PH big guns.
However, any move which involves moving MPs to a new constituency for the mere reason of unseating an incumbent would prove to be a huge gamble.
One case in point is DAP’s Liew Chin Tong, who was taken out of the comfort of his Kluang constituency to contest in Ayer Hitam in the 2018 election, which he then lost by a whisker of 303 votes against MCA’s Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong.
Khairy has also expressed reservations about raiding a constituency that belongs to another Umno member.
However, in the party’s view, this might be a gamble worth taking, what more with the outcome of the coming election still anybody’s guess. – The Vibes, September 10, 2022
