Mahathir welcomes ditching quota system

Former Umno president Dr Mahathir Mohamad hopes that the decision to abolish the quota system will put an end to party presidents abusing their power.

"I am praying that the abuse of power by the president will be eliminated and his challenger will be able to contest (for the post).

"But until now, there is no decision on how a candidate is to be nominated," added Mahathir who helmed the party and nation for 22 years.

The 84-year-old statesman was responding to the Umno supreme council's decision last Friday to abolish the quota system, which was introduced during his tenure.

Mahathir also suggested that the quota system came into effect because of his one-time protege turned nemesis, later prisoner and now opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim.

"Actually there is no flawed system. Whether a system is effective or not depends on those who practice it. When it is easy to bribe (suap) those at all levels, no system will produce the best (results)," he said.

Mahathir also provided a brief flashback on how the quota system came about.

In 1986, he said, Musa Hitam, who was a 'sworn enemy' of Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah managed to convince the latter to contest for the Umno presidency (against Mahathir).

He added that as usual, the Umno divisions named their chosen candidate, with only 20 percent endorsing the challenger.

"But during the annual assembly, Razaleigh received almost 50 percent of the votes from the delegates," he said, adding that only god knows how the difference between the divisions and delegates came about.

Following this, Mahathir said the court decided that Umno was an illegal party.

"Although Umno was restored, a handful of its members and leaders went on to form splinter parties. It was clear that a tussle for the top post could break up and weaken the party," he added.

Anwar and 'something went wrong' bonus votes

He said the Umno supreme council later discussed the possibility of this happening again and decided that in order to avoid delegates from negating the decision of the divisions, whoever that has been nominated will get 10 bonus votes (for each division).

"Unfortunately, when Anwar challenged Ghafar (Baba), it is unexplainable how such a high number of divisions nominated Anwar to the point that he defeated Ghafar just on bonus votes.

"Ghafar was forced to withdraw and Anwar became deputy president and deputy prime minister," he added.

"Something went wrong because of the bonus votes. It seems there was a way to control the divisions to the point that delegates lost their right to vote. Clearly, the bonus system was abused," he noted.

Cutting a long story short, Mahathir said the Umno supreme council then decided to introduce the quota system.

"For the post of president, the candidate should be nominated by at least 60 divisions (to be eligible to contest)...

"Unfortunately, the president who is also prime minister has a strong control of the party. Through certain ways, the president can force (the divisions) so that only he is nominated," he added.

Once again, Mahathir said, the system failed to free the divisions and members to act according to their will.

"In view of this, it is good that the quota system is abolished," he added.