Primus Inter Pares

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“Malaysia needs someone who the rakyat can throw their weight behind without reservation. Someone they can trust and respect. Someone who has no scandal to distract him and thereby gain respect from the international community.”

According to Zaid Ibrahim, these are the prerequisites for our PM to be and in his mind, Najib Tun Razak is not the one who fulfills them.

The speech, daring in that it was made in public, sheds nothing new to netizens as it recaps some of the political baggage shouldered by Najib.

Zaid however goes on to say this: “There are still well qualified members of parliament from Umno who can be appointed PM to bring us back from the brink.”

I am no fan of the now much maligned Malay nationalist party, but all the same, after all the years of covering some of their personalities, I have some soft spots for some.

Are they amongst those in Zaid’s mind, I wonder?

There are altogether 78 Umno members in the Parliament, and for obvious reasons, a good majority would not fit in the mould set out by Zaid.

(On the side: Would he consider himself to be a viable candidate? Hmm. Now there’s one thought to ponder..)

I’ve thus narrowed down my list (in no particular order, really) to the following few:

• Tengku Razaleigh Tengku Hamzah (Some says he too much of a gentlemen, but since when is chivalry a crime?)

• Mustapa Mohamed

• Ahmad Husni Mohamad Hanadzlah

• Rais Yatim

• Shahrir Abdul Samad

This is basically my personal list, and you’re welcome to have your own.

I’ve left out some obvious names for the same “political baggage” reasoning and since I am less than privy to all political shenanigans, there might just be skeletons which others would know of the names listed.

Like I said, it’s MY list.

From this list, however, you should be able to see one name that has far more credentials than the rest.

First Among Equals, so as to speak.

Alas, it’s really out of our hands for now.

I doubt it would be somebody else than Najib Tun Razak who would be occupying the highest administrative pedestal of the country.

We’ll see soon enough.

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