COMMENT | Today, Bersatu kicks off its first AGM as a ruling party. All eyes are on the party, as it looks to define its heart and soul.

The question many ask is as simple as it is pressing: Will Bersatu turn into Umno 2.0?

Today’s article will look at some of the main indicators that will help us answer this question - corruption, feudal patronage and the role of race.

It is easy to accuse Bersatu of having Umno DNA, since the vast majority of them do have past Umno associations.

The fact of the matter is, a great number of Harapan politicians have Umno origins, all the way up to Anwar Ibrahim and Dr Mahathir Mohamad themselves.

If that alone was a disqualifying clause or cause for cynicism, then we might as well give up before we begin.

As time has shown, however, one ex-Umno individual is not necessarily the same as another.

The question of mega-corruption might be the easiest to answer.

We are too close to the 1MDB disaster, and under a prime minister whose allergy towards such massive fraud runs too deep, for us to see a quick return to corruption on that scale.

No doubt there will be elements drawn to Bersatu who want a return to those Umno-style ‘good old days’, but one assumes that the majority of the original membership of Bersatu joined at least in part because they could not stomach the levels of corruption that Umno saw under its former president Najib Abdul Razak.

The question of grassroots-level corruption however, may be a little harder to...