ON the day the photograph of Khairy Jamaluddin sitting alone at the Opposition side of the Dewan Rakyat emerged and went viral, his loyalist Ibdilillah Ishak tweeted: “This is the new way of the Opposition. Well done @Khairykj. Bring the voice of the Rakyat. This is what the Rakyat wants. Not the old way. Outdated. Walk out. Walk in. Don’t treat the Dewan Rakyat like a cow barn! Debate and fight!”

Ibdilillah’s tweet summarised what his chief’s intention on the first meeting of first term of the 14th Parliament when Opposition MPs from Umno and PAS walked out of the Dewan Rakyat after Datuk Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof was sworn in as the Speaker.

Some critics said it was Khairy’s act of defiance against his party. But Ibdilillah, a former Umno Youth exco and former Barisan Nasional Youth executive secretary, disagreed.

“KJ was not trying to show that he was against Umno. He respected the MPs’ decision to walk out but he too has the right to stand up to his own principles, for what he feels is the right thing to do. He was not trying to show a message that ‘I am not with you’.

“It is an irony that you should walk out when you have just walked in,” said Ibdilillah, who has been with KJ (as the former Youth and Sports Minister is known) for a decade.

Khairy, according to him, wants “to advocate mature politics, which respects the Dewan Rakyat proceedings and the rakyat’s aspiration, as well as exemplify a true gentleman parliamentarian standing for his principle.”

Two days earlier, Khairy raised eyebrows when he tweeted that the initial appointment of Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali to an Umno supreme council was disappointing and the former Attorney-General’s quick rejection of the post was embarrassing. He called it “amateur hour”.

Two days before that, Khairy ruffled the feathers of Umno leadership under the newly-elected president Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi when he said: “Since the Umno elections ended, what has my party been doing? Playing with racial sentiments, collecting donations for our former president and repeating it again.”

Lately, especially after Khairy respectably lost against Dr Ahmad Zahid in the contest to be Umno president on July 1, the Rembau MP has been critical of his party.

“To us, it is more to what KJ wants to bring in for Umno and the people to show that Umno is changing,” said Ibdilillah.

For Universiti Utara Malaysia political lecturer Prof Dr Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani, what Khairy was doing was rebranding himself as a politician.

“He is trying to make himself different compared to other leaders in Umno. But somehow, in order to rebrand himself, he is distancing himself from Umno,” he said.

Dr Mohd Azizuddin said it was interesting to see how Khairy would manage his rebranding as he is popular with young urbanites but not within Umno – which is traditional and conservative compared to Khairy who is modernist and progressive – and rural voters.

Umno, he said, really needed to rebrand itself as well as many perceive it as a corrupt party, and with Dr Ahmad Zahid as the new president, the perception has remained.

The Umno leadership did not like Khairy’s outspokenness against the party, according to the political lecturer, but so far it couldn’t dictate what he can or cannot do.

“Knowing the culture of Umno, I don’t know with this brand of politics that Khairy is bringing whether he can sustain it within his party,” he said.

An Umno warlord said some in the party leadership looked at Khairy’s recent actions with suspicion. Some believe that he wanted to be sacked so that he could form a political party.

“Umno does not know what to do with KJ. But it will not sack him as he is an asset to the party. He has a following,” said the Umno politician, who did not want to be identified.

On the rumour that Khairy wanted to be sacked so that he could form a multiracial political party, Ibdilillah said: “No, no, no that is not true. As far I am concerned, that’s just rubbish. To me, again, let me emphasise that - KJ doing this for the love of the party, he wants Umno to change.”

“Khairy did mention about rebranding (Umno). But there is no point of rebranding the party with the same people,” he said.

“People are talking as if he is a ‘third person’ in Umno, he is not. He used to be the Ketua Pemuda, he is still Rembau Umno deputy head, he is a Barisan MP and he has stated his love and loyalty for Umno, so we should throw out the rumours about him leaving and creating a new party.”

What Khairy wants, according to his loyalist, is for Umno and Barisan to be a credible opposition.

“We must realise that we lost in GE14. That is the reality. Don’t blame the loss to perception. We need to move on. We need to learn and show that we are a smart and credible opposition,” he said.

“Don’t be an opposition that only wants to be in the government through the backdoor. That is what KJ is saying.”

Ibdilillah believes if there was a negotiation to be part of the government, it would not be democratic.

“It sounds like a warlord negotiating with another warlord – look, let us combine and form a government. I don’t think this is what the rakyat wants. The rakyat has voted this government,” he said.

“The problem with our leaders is that they can’t move on. They live in a cocoon. They live in such a comfort zone that they don’t know how to move on. This is what KJ is preaching. And I hope the rest will follow. Only buffaloes come in herds. A lion always comes alone.”

Dr Mohd Azizuddin said he wanted to see how far Khairy would go with his rebranding.

“It is still early to understand what brand of politics Khairy is bringing. We can see that he is trying to be different,” he said.

Probably, he said, within a year we can really see who the rebranded Khairy is.