Ku Li Moots Fresh Umno Elections To Replace Party Leadership

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Umno's entire leadership should take collective responsibility for the party's worst electoral performance at the recent state polls, according to former Gua Musang MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.
In an interview with English-daily The Star, the Umno veteran said he was not out to defend party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi from internal calls for his resignation.
"You cannot blame one person. I’m not defending Zahid or anybody.
"We’re just talking about winning and losing. And the leadership as a whole has to bear responsibility for this loss," said Tengku Razaleigh.
"If we’re not careful, it may spell the demise of the party.
"So I place the whole blame on the leadership of the party. If you want somebody to go, the entire leadership has to go, and we must overhaul the party," he was quoted as saying.
In order to overhaul Umno, Razaleigh said the way forward would be through fresh party elections, despite the current leadership line-up led by Zahid and Umno deputy president Mohamad Hassan only being elected five months ago.
Umno president Ahmad Zahid HamidiAt the time, it was agreed that there would be no contest for Umno's top two roles, allowing Zahid and Mohamad to defend their positions uncontested.
"We must have a new (party) election. That’s genuine renewal.
"Otherwise, don’t talk about it," said Razaleigh.
At the same time, the former eight-term MP said he has no names to replace Zahid and that more Umno members should make any such suggestion.
However, Razaleigh identified several points for consideration, including the person "must know what a Malay is" while also understanding the Federal Constitution.
'Malay support for stable government'
Moving forward, Razaleigh said he believes that securing Malay support remains vital for a stable government, a fact which a reorganised Umno should take heed of.
"You can have hodgepodge votes like what PAS or Perikatan Nasional have today. But that’s not enough to marshal the country together.
"All this while, from 1955, we were "stable" in the sense of inverted commas because the Malays were always there," The Star quoted Razaleigh.
"Many people worry about Anwar. Can Anwar marshal all these Malay voters? If the Malays are not with you, you don’t have a stable government.
"He can get a two-thirds majority or whatever in Parliament. But does he have a big body of Malays behind him?," he said, stressing that stability will come together with added support from non-Malays.  
BN in coalition with Pakatan Harapan and others in the federal government fielded 108 candidates across six states in the recent elections, but only 19 of them won.
BN through Umno was also wiped out from Kedah and Terengganu and left with one state assemblyperson in Kelantan. - Mkini

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