The new KJ: Can he survive?

Khairy Jamaluddin, the current No 2 in Umno Youth, who is involved in an uphill struggle to win the Umno Youth chief post, has been trying to reinvent himself in the press by noticeably shifting to a more moderate, liberal and progressive position from his earlier career choice of portraying himself as a Malay ultra.

What can explain this perceptible shift in what has to be a strategic decision on his part? It surely cannot be because he hopes to win more votes among Umno Youth delegates by portraying himself as more moderate than his opponents.

Khairy made a decision early in his political career to portray himself as a Malay ultra, perhaps because he felt that his 'local' (read: Malay) credentials was lacking due to his Oxford education and years spent overseas.

While he is now saying that many of his words and actions were misinterpreted in the past, it is unlikely that someone as politically and media savvy as Khairy would have continued to issue these sorts of 'misinterpreted' statements.

He clearly thought that he could follow the traditional Umno playbook, which is to assume the role of a Youth 'ultra' to move up the ranks of leadership, and then go back to his moderate 'roots' once he is at the top. While this strategy may have been applicable when the BN was in a position of hegemonic dominance, it may not work to the same degree when the same 'ultra' strategy is at least partly blamed for the BN's disastrous election results in March 2008.

But will this new strategy on the part of Khairy necessarily win him more votes among the Umno Youth delegates? It is hard to imagine the same delegates who stood obstinately behind the keris waving antics of outgoing Umno Youth leader Hishammuddin Hussein to also prefer a candidate who is refashioning himself to be more moderate.

Master of rhetorical 'targeting'

One possibility is that Khairy may be appealing to different crowds using different mediums. After all, many politicians, within the BN as well as the opposition emphasise different aspects of their political message to different groups, depending on their ethnic composition.

Anwar Ibrahim is arguably the master of such rhetorical 'targeting'. It is possible that when Khairy is speaking to a reporter of an English daily, whose readers are more multiracial, wants to refashion himself as a progressive, perhaps even to differentiate himself from Mukhriz Mahathir, who is beginning to sound more and more like his father, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, when he said that there was no need for judicial reform as reforms of this nature would not benefit the Malays.

Perhaps Khairy would not sound so moderate or progressive when he is speaking to his 'base' of Umno Youth members and delegates in a closed-door setting.

Emphasising different aspects of one's political platform or message to different crowds is one thing, but in this age of the Internet and mobile recording devices, it would be dangerous to completely change one's tune when speaking to different audiences. Even Anwar is careful not to say that he would abolish the New Economic Policy to a multiracial or non-Malay crowd and then turn around to say to a Malay crowd that he would not abolish the NEP.

If Khairy is trying to refashion himself as a moderate, it is likely that he would want to play this message consistently, more or less, across his campaign. This is not to suggest that he would suddenly say that the NEP should go but rather a more nuanced framing of such an issue – for example, by saying that so long as Malays are in the majority among the disadvantaged, the NEP has its place but perhaps its implementation and delivery could be improved.

A sign of whether Khairy is serious in taking this shift towards seeming more moderate stand would be the upcoming Umno Youth debate between himself and Khir Toyo, the former MB of Selangor. Both candidates are speaking to two audiences, a national audience comprising of both non-Malays and non-Umno members and their 'voting constituency', which comprise of Umno Youth delegates.

Both must think strategically as to how they want to position themselves in the eyes of both these audiences. We predict that Khairy will probably win the debate in terms of substance and also appear more conciliatory and even tempered in his 'Malay' rhetoric with perhaps a symbolic and even a substantive shift to a more moderate position.

While Umno is a party that is driven primarily by access to patronage and will continue to be in the near future, the importance of platforms is becoming evident.

The recent MCA elections showed us a hint that having a platform of being more assertive against Umno was a popular one and having the ability to communicate this platform to a larger public was also necessary which explains Chua Soi Lek's upset victory over Ong Ka Chuan, partly because of his debate performance against Donald Lim, the third VP candidate in the race.

Slim chance to become Youth chief

It is not clear as of now, what platforms Mukhriz, Khairy and Khir will be campaigning on to win delegates over to their sides.

If there is any 'platform', it would seem that Mukhriz will be running on linking Khairy to an ineffective Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and blaming Khairy and Abdullah for the BN's disastrous electoral performance, perhaps mirroring the Barack Obama strategy of linking John McCain to eight years of failed Bush policies. Khairy, on the other hand, is trying to distance himself from Abdullah and is asking Umno Youth delegates to judge him based on his own record.

It is unlikely that Khairy will be able to defeat Mukhriz in this context, even if Mukhriz is seen as cowardly because he does not want to publicly debate Khairy and Khir Toyo. The patronage politics that permeates Umno forces its members to think 'what can you do for me' which means to say that even if Khairy has helped many delegates in the past to gain access to patronage, many of them know that once Abdullah is out of power, Khairy will lose access to the office of the PM and with that the derivative power of perhaps granting or denying them access to patronage.

The taint of Abdullah, coupled with Mahathir's strong influence in the background and throw in Najib's tacit support for Mukhriz, and it is not hard to see how hard of a climb this will be for Khairy.

As an indication of the tough battle ahead, Khir Toyo pulled ahead of Khairy in terms of the number of nominations from the divisions. While nominations from divisions often do not perfectly translate into delegate votes, it is indicative of Khairy's challenges ahead. If Abdullah was expected to last another term in office, Khairy's would be in a dominant position now, at least in terms of the number of nominations.

We cannot help but think that Khairy is fully aware of his slim chances at winning the position of Umno Youth chief. His shift towards a more moderate position, one which we argue is more consistent with his upbringing, his life experience and even perhaps his underlying values system, is a move in preparation for the future rather than the now.

There is a strong likelihood that the BN may fall out of power at the federal level in the next few years, through the ballot box or through defections, and it is in this context that we may expect Khairy to present himself as the moderate face and future of the BN. Could it be that Khairy is reinventing himself to be the next Anwar within the BN?

ONG KIAN MING is a PhD candidate in political science at Duke University and YUN YANG is a writer and new media analyst. You can listen to both of them discuss this topic in their Realpolitik podcast.

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