APRIL 23 — Umno turns 100 in 2046, and there’s every chance if it heads the federal government then Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar is prime minister.

Of course, if in 1961 someone posited Mahathir Mohamad will be PM 20 years on and repeats the act in his nineties they’d be laughed off to a mental health facility.

Barring deaths, here’s how the leadership clubhouse would look like in 2046. Anwar Ibrahim is 99, Zahid Hamidi 93, Mohamad Hasan 89 and Hadi Awang 99.

The leadership vacuum in the horizon.

Which is why staying in the race is far more critical than having clever things to say in the interim. The last 80 years of national politics instructs this, almost too cruelly. The battle is one of attrition, not talent.

Forty years ago, Donald Trump was synonymous with sordid divorces rather than sorties into Iran. Imagine that! Time always confounds the unprepared.

So, it can be great for 70-year-old Khairy in 2046.

Suitable for the vacant position

A dozen years ago, this column prophesied “…the stars are aligning well for Khairy.”

At that juncture, he was sports minister after being sidelined four years before for being his father-in-law Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s sidekick between 2000 to 2009. After being out in the cold, a political pathway re-emerged to Seri Perdana.

But I forewarned then, he is not the hope middle class Malaysia yearns for. Najib Razak picked him after four years of toeing the line and unflinching loyalty. The period when Terengganu Investment Authority metamorphosed into 1MDB and the Wolf of Wall Street was in production. The Oxford boy radiated obedience throughout. He is well trained not to look where trouble brews.

Today, Khairy picks Umno as the best vehicle for his personal ambitions, not because he wants Malaysia to be ambitious. Malaysians tend to misunderstand his personal urgency.

Am I being unfair? Let’s enquire.

Where is his vision for Malaysia? Three years in the wilderness, he played it cool in his podcasts, and jumped about in a radio studio. However, he did not stand unequivocally for anything. Committing to a position would require defending a position. A halfway, non-committal sort of yes and no, is much easier to squirm away from.

The years away have been a prolonged job interview. To appear strong but not actually too strong as to alienate people he’d need later.

The political celebrities lined up to be on his show because no one was excoriated when invited on. It was in mutual interest. You look good, I look good, but nothing of substance occurs.

As for the viewers?

Malaysians are trained to look on as the blueblood sits on stage and speaks down to them while being cordial to each other.

Neither Khairy nor partner Shahril Hamdan echo David Frost or mimic even a weak version of Hardtalk. No one is embarrassed.

Compare Khairy with Mahathir in his years out of power after being sacked by Umno’s second president Abdul Rahman Abdul Hamid.

His Malay Dilemma explained the Malaysia he saw and the Malaysia he was determined to engineer. While many disagree with Mahathir, not the least this column, there is no confusion about where Mahathir stands on ethnic superiority and the Malay-first agenda.

You know why you hate Mahathir, or love him as the misguided tend to be.

With Khairy, you are certain he is for all the great things which are possible, unless if they are not great things, then he is not so much for them. The details, he prefers to skip.

He will give the ideas more polish, and avoid the faux pas avalanche Rafizi Ramli hits with alacrity. One is a diplobrat, the other merely a brat.

Two general elections, maybe more

Now that Umno took back the boy wonder, it needs to offer him a spot. A worthy spot.

But men like party deputy president Mohamad Hasan who inherited Khairy’s Rembau parliamentary seat in 2022, rather he jogs and not sprints to the next general election.

I said before GE15 that Khairy in the Dewan Rakyat is an unnecessary threat to Tok Mat. Still true today.

Maybe a bit of jeopardy by shipping him out to Kedah — maternal links — instead of letting Khairy have a crack at Jelebu, Jempol or Kuala Pilah — all traditional Umno seats in Negeri Sembilan. Tok Mat runs the table in Negeri Sembilan for Barisan Nasional.

Khairy has repeated a bit too enthusiastically that he is here to serve the party and not to pursue party positions. They may restrict him to serving in the short-term.

In the “keep him on a short leash” scenario, the party welcomes his campaigning for GE16 without being a candidate and rewards him with a minister position via the senator route. Just like Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz before he fled to PKR. This way, president Zahid Hamidi and Tok Mat are in control.

Zahid did not craft Rumah Bangsa and disguise it as a race love initiative instead of the party recruitment tool it actually is, only to have the recruits usurp him.

The party president may not be worldly, but he is a great warlord in the organisation.

Either way, it’s forward

The conveyor belt is now firmly in motion. Khairy’s ascension in the party is inevitable but the timeline is up for debate.

Even if he fails to become numero uno, he’d be a central figure in the party. The other question, increasingly pertinent, is how central will Umno be to Malaysian politics in the long term?

It has steadily lost pace in the last four elections; is an uptick on the cards because of Khairy?

At least, Khairy has more room to manoeuvre from inside rather than looking in from outside.

He can reap Umno’s success by staying loyal. Already it nauseates hearing him express his gratitude to Zahid whom he fought against for the presidency in 2018.

The old acrimony has dissipated. He is mum about Zahid’s get out of jail play with the 47 charges and the Bar Council’s efforts to U-turn the DNAA at the appeals court.

The only thing he cannot stop yapping about is his ardent love for Umno. A party which has a pedantic fervour to claim “the others” are threatening Malays while looking directly at a large section of middle-class Malaysia which roots for him. The party of principle and justice, just not for all Malaysians.

All of this is academic. The only objective of this column this week is to remind you, very little has ever changed, whether with Khairy, Umno or their common agenda. Twelve years later, it is clearer the road to glory for one man.

The consummate diplomat. They are excellent emissaries but forget not representatives are vague to do their master’s bidding.

Khairy did the tai-chi for three years, to look serious and fun, verbose and sporty, to look the part. But always in audition mode.

While it gets you the gig, leadership sets the agenda. Hanging on for the Umno lifeboat, which has arrived, shows he never was willing to “take it on” by himself. It might ultimately not be what he’s built for.

That’s what you get with this package.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.