By Chong Lip Teck, Sin Chew Daily

Umno is now in a state of civil war. The alleged phone conversation between party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and his PKR counterpart Anwar Ibrahim could be both a plot and a bomb dropped by the rivals.

If this has not been designed by someone inside Umno, the prime suspect must be a rival party awaiting to "reap" the harvest, but more likely than not, it is the result of collusion within and without Umno.

Having both denied to have made the conversation, Zahid and Anwar have vowed to lodge police reports to clear their names. Nevertheless, we have so far not seen any action from either gentleman.

Home minister Hamzah Zainudin said if the two leaders were clean, they should go report to the police. This was soon echoed by his Bersatu lackeys

The anti-Zahid faction in Umno not only has not come to his rescue, but has actually rubbed salt into the wound by asserting that the audio clip is real, this done to sustain their claim that Zahid is no longer fit to lead the party and that the incompetent, weak and treacherous president, along with his gang, must be kicked out.

While indeed Zahid is not that innocent at all, the rest in his party are not any cleaner, either.

Umno under the leadership of Zahid is becoming weaker by the day, but his successor may not necessarily make the party great again.

Be it Zahid or the "court cluster" or "minister cluster", they all believe they have what it takes to act as checks and balances to Bersatu, and make Umno great again. That said, the opposing factions themselves may all be led to the edge of the cliff because of Bersatu!

Sadly, neither side has so far let the grassroots and the public see their leaders' directions but more of their greed for power and money.

After the 2018 general elections, we have seen in Umno that once a party loses its powers, it loses also its wealth, resources and status, and therefore a distinct direction to bring the party back on feet again.

In order to put up the so-called "Malay unity government", Umno opted to tie up with PAS to form the Muafakat Nasional alliance, and thanks to the "traitors" within Pakatan Harapan, they seized the opportunity to savor the sweet taste of power once again.

However, they later found out that things did not quite turn out as they had wished, and decided to abandon their new partners, like how they did to their BN allies previously.

Umno has not displayed a clear direction ever since the party's defeat in GE14 all the way through the infamous Sheraton Move. While they can always put the blame on Zahid or even Najib, those aligning themselves to the president can never be spared of their accountability

Indeed, the president has a major role to play in Umno's predicament today, but if the party still has the slightest faith in collective leadership and collective responsibility, then no one from top down is ever qualified to cast the first stone at the party president.

Umno has erected a "political system" that thrives on a powerful and solid Malay political party as cornerstone. And once such a system begins to tilt, it will mark the beginning of chaos. Sure enough a civil war will break out the money and power are no more at their disposal.

The Malay politicians' biggest fear has finally descended on them. The Malays have become politically divided, not just split into two but many small splinters.

So, who can put up the Umno "palace" once again? Not Zahid, and less so the "minister cluster".

There are bound to be undesirable consequences whichever way adopted to throw out the president. By convention deputy president Mohamad Hasan should take over the baton, but he is Zahid's man, meaning not only the president must go, his deputy must not allowed to stay, too. And the operation is costly and exhaustive without rebuilding the existing system and the charting of a new direction. Who knows Bersatu will have the last laugh before a new Umno leadership team gets installed!

We all know Umno needs a strong leader to take the party "out of Egypt". The question is: who is that Moses?

When will this new leader show up? Like their leaders, the grassroots are also in a state of disunity. This new leader should be decided in a party election, but the question is: when will that election be held?

According to the party constitution, party elections should be held this June. However, the supreme council has the power to defer the elections, and the final decision shall rest with the president.

Zahid has no intention of any sort to call for party elections before GE15, the date for which is itself another big question. The only valid reason for Zahid's opponents to get party elections held before GE is that the president is no longer fit to lead the party and a new leadership must be elected as soon as possible to arrest the continued downfall of Umno.

There are risks holding the party elections before GE. The already divided party is set to split further, making it even tougher for it to make preparations ahead of the general elections, eventually benefiting only the rival parties.

Those in the "minister cluster" may not necessarily win the party elections. If they lose, they will likely remain losers in the end whether they opt to defect to Bersatu or any other parties.

If party elections are only held after GE15, it means Zahid will get to lead the party through the election. But as he will not be the party's PM candidate, Bersatu will be glad to see him as Umno's commander, as this will give Bersatu more reasons to attack Umno.

While Umno aspires to rule again, the party simply lacks an appropriate choice for the PM post, and this could spell a major disaster for a party that used to dominate Malaysian politics for decades.

Tun Mahathir had the strategies, resources, people and powers all at his disposal when he took out Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah back in those years. But what about Umno now? Umno is not any stronger than Bersatu which it has dismissed as a weak partner, with some in servile submission to the rivals for the sake of lucrative government posts, lying to themselves this is the strategy to make Umno great again.