Umno lowers membership age to 16

Umno will lower its membership age to 16 and set up a council of advisors chaired by Gua Musang MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.

This was announced today by party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi after he chaired a supreme council meeting at the party headquarters this evening.

“To fulfil the desires of the grassroots and to ensure we reform Umno’s organisational structure, constitution and rules, we have decided to lower the membership age from the present 18 years to 16.

“[...] I would also like to announce that the supreme council has decided to form a council of advisors chaired by Tengku Razaleigh,” he told a press conference after the meeting.

The council's terms of reference and members will be announced by Tengku Razaleigh at a later date, Zahid said.

‘Issue-focused’ opposition

The idea of having a council of advisors was first mooted by former Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin when campaigning during in his recent unsuccessful bid to be Umno president.

Tengku Razaleigh (below) had also run unsuccessfully against Zahid for the party presidency.

Zahid also said Umno has set up 10 secretariats which will focus on highlighting Umno’s stance on current issues and policy changes by the Pakatan Harapan government.

“Now that we are the core of the opposition coalition, Umno will no longer focus on development or service matters but we will start highlighting issues,” Zahid said.

Also set up were nine councils to help reform the party and eight committees to replace existing bureaus within the party.

General assembly dates

Zahid further announced that the party’s general assembly will be brought forward from December to Sept 29 for the party's three wings and Sept 30 for the main body.

The president said he hoped Umno’s bank accounts would be unfrozen by then.

“We have appointed a law firm to file our claims (from the MACC),” he said.

The accounts were frozen as part of the MACC’s probe into accounts that received monies linked to beleaguered state-firm 1MDB which is now the focus of a multi-national investigation.

This year’s general assembly will be Umno’s first since losing government for the first time following the 14th general election. - Mkini