COMMENT | Many political writers are actively writing nowadays, probably the lockdown spurs them to do so.

One of them is my friend Rosli Azad Khan. He recently wrote a piece in an online news portal that Umno must rid itself of warlords if they are to be accepted by the people. Cut the gangrene, he thundered.

A week before that Daim Zainuddin, who himself a warlord of immense power, said the same thing. Who are actually the warlords? It will be helpful if we know the name of Umno leaders who should be deposed. Are they referring to those facing criminal charges like Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor and Najib Abdul Razak?

A warlord in the middle ages is someone with military power and sits high in the feudal hierarchy, just below the monarch. They were the shoguns in Japan, followed by the daimyos, and the knights and the dukes in feudal Europe.

The lower strata were the peasants and the serfs. Now in the world of organised crime, we have the godfathers, who wield power and influence, without the formality of power.

Political organisations are no different. They have a hierarchy of leaders. They have their own shoguns and the daimyos. In Umno, they had their version of Tokugawa Ieyasu (the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate), a strong leader who controlled the warring factions. Dr Mahathir Mohamad was Umno’s Ieyasu. He was the first Umno shogun.

Tokugawa shogunate only ended when the Satsuma and the Chosu combined forces to enable the ascension of a teenage Emperor Meiji 240 years later. Umno too lost power when its own shogun, Mahathir, combined forces with PKR and DAP shoguns.

Only a strong shogun can exercise control of the members and voters. They need to have an established network within the political organisation and by their patronage, they are in control of key levers of power.

Naturally, they need huge sums of money for that purpose, not to mention to fund the elections. Please do not belittle the warlords, for they are an essential part of any political structure throughout the ages.

Mahathir (ably assisted by Daim) is the most powerful shogun in Umno’s history. For over three decades they were in complete control of the...