BN parties must change current leadership

Component parties, if they want to stay relevant, need to completely change their leadership, says a political scientist

PETALING JAYA: Barisan Nasional component parties, with the exception of Umno, have been told to get rid of current party leadership to regain political mileage after a dismal performance during GE13.

Political analysts said today only a change in leadership would ensure parties like PPP, Gerakan as well as MCA and MIC remain “relevant”.

“The current leadership must resign because the old group is completely discredited,” Monash University political scientist James Chin told FMT.

“They need to completely change their leadership if they want to stay relevant,” he added.

National Council of Professors’ Cluster head of Political, Security and International Affairs chief, Mohamed Mustafa Ishak, agreed with Chin, saying it was needed to bring about “change of approach, direction and policies”.

“I do not see how a party can change if its leadership remains the same,” he lamented.

Chin noted that the affected parties were no longer relevant not because they did not win any seats, but because they don’t know how popular they are as none of them stood under their own party symbol.

“After they joined BN, they have been under their (BN’s) symbol. That’s why these parties don’t know the extent of public support for them,” he said.

“After joining BN they lost their own identity. For example, people don’t vote for Gerakan because they think it’s a vote for Umno, and not Gerakan,” he explained.

“Therefore, their party identity is lost because people associate the (scales logo) with Umno. These parties don’t know their real support,” he added.

Mustafa also said that while there was an eventual need to merge all the component parties together, Umno’s current relevancy in safeguarding the interests of the Malays would make the merger highly unlikely.

“Whether this is a good move to bring them together or not is not important because it is unlikely Umno will dissolve and open up and ask everybody to join in,” he said.

“Umno is not going to do that given the current situation. Its members and the Malay community at large would not like to see the party dissolve. Umno is still relevant to safeguard their interests,” he added.

Mustafa pointed out that if Umno were to open its doors, there would be “no single Malay party to represent Malay rights”, which would then “make PAS become stronger”.

“So Umno will never dissolve at the moment. The basis for the party right now is too strong,” he said.

“However, it is important for all the component parties to work together to champion the rights of all Malaysians.”