In February 2010, I suggested that Najib Razak’s position as Prime Minister of Malaysia is vulnerable. I also suggested that his most potent challenge will come from Muhyiddin Yassin, the current Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education of Malaysia and of course, the Deputy President of UMNO. Muhyiddin has made veiled attacks against the Prime Minister’s policies after having being sidestepped as Prime Minister himself. He has upped the ante in recent weeks after the poor performance of Barisan Nasional at the Sarawak state elections which were led by Najib Razak personally.

This extract from Malaysiakini tells the story:

Just look at how party deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin affects to swim in his leader, Najib Razak’s, slipstream while writing his own personal agendas.

Muhyiddin’s reaction to the call by the MCA for a boycott of Umno-owned paper Utusan Malaysia over the latter’s proposition that Malays rally behind the ‘1Melayu, 1Bumi’ policy is a good illustration of the point.

Muhyiddin rapped MCA across the knuckles for calling for the boycott on grounds that sounded vaguely like he believed in freedom of the press and then sidestepped the question of whether he supported or disagreed with Utusan’s ‘1Melayu, 1Bumi’ rallying cry.

It was the clearest demonstration in his now delicate, two-year-old, trapeze act wherein he shows tepid support for policy initiatives of his party’s president while leaving himself enough wiggle room to hint he would chart a new course as skipper of the crew.