In 1987, a bitter dispute erupted between Mahathir, who was then the prime minister, and another faction in Umno led by former Minister of Finance Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and former deputy prime minister Musa Hitam.
The dispute resulted in Umno to be divided into the infamous Team A and Team B, which would then result in the original Umno, that led the nation to independence, to be dissolved. ( The current Umno, or Umno baru, was only recently formed in the year 1988) .
Pak Lah chose to support Team B, which eventually lost the dispute, and as a result, he was sacked from his post of Minister of Defence in the Cabinet.
Despite that, Pak Lah was brought back into the fold of new Umno, and in 2003, he would even scale to the top of Umno to become the fifth prime minister of the country.
That Pak Lah was able not only able to return to the winning side although he was a part of the losing team, but also rise to the very top, is a sign of Pak Lah had always been a gentleman and a man of honour, whose dispute with others were likely based on differences in principles rather than ego, power, position or pride.
When the dispute between Mahathir and Anwar in 1998, again resulted in Umno, as well as the entire country, split in two, it was only someone who had the reputation of being a gentleman, a fair and decent man as well as a man of honour, that could be counted on to heal the division in the country.
When the question was asked, who is such a man in the country, the answer we got was Pak lah.
To prove that he was the right man for the time, Pak Lah would lead Barisan Nasional in the 2004 election to a grand victory, where BN would sweep 90 percent of the seats in the country and control all the states in the country other than Kelantan.
The grand victory was a testament to the universal approval of Pak Lah as a unifying figure in the country, at the time of division and schism.
Although it was not the most politically astute decision to make, our current Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, was also released from prison in 2004, during the reign of Pak Lah. That Anwar was released at the time, from a prison term that is almost universally seen as the result of political motivation, is another sign that Pak Lah was a person who valued fair play and decency, much more than he did political victory and positions.
Politically speaking however, that Pak Lah had released Anwar would backfire on him in the 2008 election, when BN would suffer a bruising blow, by losing the two third parliamentary majority that it had always enjoyed, while the Anwar led opposition (although officially, the opposition was led by Wan Azizah, Anwar’s wife, but it is an open secret that the de facto leader of the opposition was Anwar) startled the country by winning an astounding 82 seats and 5 states.
Other than the Anwar factor, BN’s loss was also likely the result of the impossible expectation that was laid upon the shoulders of Pak Lah to act in a fair, honourable and gentlemanly manner, in a country where everyone had their own interpretation of what honourable, fair and gentlemanly meant.
Due to the perceived losses of the 2008 elections, Pak Lah will be pressured to resign and hand over the leadership of the country to Najib in 2009.
Although, outwardly, Pak Lah might have been seen as someone who ended his reign in defeat, more meaningfully, Pak Lah’s reign should perhaps be seen as the reign of a man who accepted personal losses, for the greater good of the country.
When he came into the picture, the forces of history were pushing the country towards a two party rule, after being ruled by a single party for almost the entirety of its existence. If it was not because of someone as good, honourable and gentlemanly as Pak Lah helming the nation during this period of transition, it is doubtful as to whether we could have had such a peaceful transition.
Until yesterday ( 13 April) , Pak Lah was distinguished as the only one of our 6 living prime ministers who has never been caught on the wrong side of the law.
Today, Pak Lah has passed away.
It is perhaps apt for him to leave us at this time, for it is said that it is always the good that goes first.
May his soul rest in peace.
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