I refer to the Malaysiakini report 'Musical chairs' in Umno transition plan.

You quote a political analyst's comments about Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah's prospects after the latest version of the transition plan.

He said: "His case is quite clear - Razaleigh is making his bid for the presidency based on the argument that Abdullah is not a suitable leader. With the transition already happening, it will mean (that the departure of) Abdullah is already a foregone conclusion.

"If Abdullah is gone, then Razaleigh is gone also."

I am afraid I fail to see the case as clearly.

Razaleigh has repeated, with absolute consistency, that he is offering himself for the Umno presidency because he can serve the party and the country with the kind of leadership that it desperately needs.

He has been careful to point out that he is contesting a position which comes up for renewal triennially. Democratic mandates are given for fixed time. They expire, then come up ‘empty’, so to speak, for renewal. In Umno, any member who has paid his RM1 annual subscription fee is eligible to offer himself for any position in the party that comes up for renewal.

Razaleigh’s criticisms have been directed at ‘the leadership’ which bears collective responsibility rather than at the person of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. This team includes other leaders who might now be expected to contest the presidency.

The notion that a contender ‘challenges’ or ‘attacks’ such and such a person, ‘splits the party’ or otherwise violates the order of nature is an unfortunate reflection of the personality-centred nature of Malaysian politics which we hope the Malaysian public - and some day its independent political analysts too - might outgrow.

Personality politics is extraordinarily popular among existing office-holders. They justify their holding office not by pointing out what policies or qualities of leadership they offer the public but by the fact that they, well, hold office.

The longer they have been in this happy state, the better. We must now give them power because they already have it. What they have done with it, who it benefits, and where it ultimately comes from, is a question only the naive ask.

This is a nice arrangement.

The incumbents bind themselves piously to transition plans and other such private agreements worked out beyond the scrutiny of their constituents, the party rank and file, their partners in allied parties and of course, the rakyat.

So how do they sort out disagreements among themselves if sweet harmony and concord do not prevail beyond the surface? Given that leaders are not to be ‘challenged’ for fear of ‘splitting the party’ and other vaguely specified calamities, one handy old method is the double cross, the eleventh hour betrayal.

This also is worked out beyond the scrutiny of anybody including, usually, the victim of the double cross. Some of our office holders have had useful experience in executing this manoeuvre.

This is the ‘negotiated tender’ system.

‘Foregone conclusions’ can be fixed for political analysts to make glib pronouncements over.

Against this, Razaleigh has expressed a preference for the open light of constitutionally mandated, democratic contest.

In such contests the question of who else is contesting the Umno presidency is a secondary issue, regardless of whether that candidate is Abdullah, Najib, Muhyiddin or Barack Obama. This is usually how it is in democratic contests.

Political analysts might want to look it up. One offers oneself for a position rather than against this or that person.

It may come as a surprise to some that Razaleigh is in this arduous contest for better reasons and with larger plans in mind than that Abdullah's style of leadership is not to his taste.