KUALA LUMPUR: Former Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin said he was “a little speechless” after receiving a public show of support from DAP’s Ong Kian Ming yesterday.
“It is rare to find genuine friendship across the aisle. But we were actually friends before we made our political choices,” Khairy wrote in response to Ong’s Instagram post marking his 50th birthday.
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Recalling years of personal milestones, Khairy added: “I was at your wedding. You were at my birthdays. That’s more than just expedient political networking. That’s friendship. And friendships endure through fair winds and stormy seas.”
He ended on a forward-looking note: “We share a vision for the nation. Let’s get it done, brother.”
Ong, a former Bangi MP who has since returned to academia, had earlier said he would take leave from work to publicly campaign for Khairy at the next general election, regardless of party affiliation.
“I don’t know what the next decade will look like for KJ. But I do know that I will be taking leave from work to publicly campaign for KJ, regardless of his party affiliation, at the next general elections,” he wrote, using Khairy’s popular moniker.
“When he becomes prime minister, I will gladly throw my hat into the ring to be part of his Cabinet, if he sees me fit.”
In a lengthy tribute, Ong described Khairy as one of “a handful of people whom I would consider a friend and a brother in the brutal world of politics”, placing him “at the top of this short list”.
He said they first met in 2001 at a conference in Washington DC, when Khairy was “already a rising star in Umno Youth” and Ong was “just entering into the arena of political analysis and policy research”.
The two later served as MPs on opposing sides of the House from 2013 to 2022, working together on shared causes despite deep political differences.
Ong cited their collaboration on the Sports Development (Amendment) Act 2018 and, most significantly, Operation Surge Capacity, which aimed “to provide at least one Covid-19 vaccine to every single resident in the Klang Valley by August 1, 2021”.
At the same time, he noted, they were “on different sides of the fence during the 1MDB scandal and the Sheraton Move”.
After stepping away from frontline politics, their partnership took new forms.
Ong joined Khairy and former Umno information chief Shahril Hamdan as a guest and later co-host on the Keluar Sekejap podcast, while Khairy became a member of the Industry Advisory Panel of the Philosophy, Politics and Economics programme that Ong launched at Taylor’s University in April 2025.
“We’ve had more time to run and play pickleball together now that we both left frontline politics,” Ong wrote.
Khairy was sacked from Umno in 2023 for breaching party discipline during the 15th general election, while Ong chose not to contest and subsequently returned to academic life.
In 2023, Khairy had joked about forming a new political party with Ong, who replied that he would consider it if Khairy were the president.
Closing his birthday message, Ong stripped away the political calculations.
“When all is said and done, he is my brother and friend, through ups and downs, thick and thin,” he wrote.
“Happy 50th birthday, bro… Keep being yourself and keep on keeping on. I see you.”
