Nur Jazlan ‘spineless’ says Syed Hamid

Umno veteran says Nur Jazlan should have spoken up or resigned if things had been bad in the BN under Najib Razak.

Umno veteran Syed Hamid Albar says Nur Jazlan should have done the honourable thing. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: Former deputy minister Nur Jazlan Mohamed has been described as “spineless” for not resigning or taking some other action to show his dissatisfaction with the way former prime minister Najib Razak ran the government.

Umno veteran Syed Hamid Albar said it was easy for anyone to talk after the fact, like Nur Jazlan did after Najib’s defeat and Umno’s loss of power.

“What people want to know is what you were doing while everything was going on,” he said. “After the event, people can say a lot of things. It just goes to show you don’t have a backbone.”

Nur Jazlan recently told FMT that Najib had refused to resign as Umno president following the party’s disastrous outing in the May 9 general election but had been forced to do so.

In another press interview, he also said Najib should have foreseen the collapse of Umno and Barisan Nasional and that BN’s loss of power was due to Najib’s failure to deal with allegations of corruption and 1MDB’s problems.

Syed Hamid said if Nur Jazlan had indeed disagreed with how Najib was running the show, the honourable thing for him to do would have been to resign.

“If you go on and enjoy the benefits of being where you are without doing or saying anything, then you are equally responsible.”

Syed Hamid also criticised those in Umno who would not admit to the party’s shortcomings and had instead cited Pakatan Harapan’s smear campaign as reason for its defeat.

“Even if it’s true that BN was defamed, being unable to deal with it just meant that BN didn’t have a very good strategy,” he said. “In politics, don’t expect the other party to be kind to you. They fight hard because they want to win.”

He said BN had instead continued behaving with confidence of victory. “I think what killed BN was its overconfidence.” -FMT