‘ACTUALLY, MAHATHIR WAS AFRAID, HE FEARED MUSA HITAM’ – KU LI DROPS BOMBSHELL: EVEN NOW, MAHATHIR ONLY LOOKING OUT FOR HIMSELF – NOT MALAY UNITY’

DR Mahathir Mohamad is looking out for himself and not the Malay political base when he asked Umno members to join Bersatu, said Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah

The Umno advisory council chairman said the Bersatu chairman’s call was never to consolidate Malay power.

“Don’t be swayed when Pakatan Harapan leaders say Dr Mahathir wants to see Umno members join Bersatu to strengthen Malay power.

“We don’t have to leave. We are united. He left our party,” he said in his address at the opening of the Bagan Datuk Umno division meeting today.

The Bagan Datuk division is headed by Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

Last month Dr Mahathir invited all Malay parties, including Umno, to join Bersatu for the sake of Malay unity.

He said too many Malay parties were sprouting up, which would split votes and reduce their chances in elections.

“Yes, join Bersatu. When our group is big, we become strong, but don’t stop others from joining the party (Bersatu), let them join.

“If we are split, we become weak. United we stand, divided we fall. (But) we find that there are people forming new parties, we have become six, soon there will be 10, (then) 100. There are 30 people in one party, How to win (elections)?” he said.

However, he subsequently qualified his statement by saying there were too many Malay parties and he was only looking to stop the proliferation.

Umno has rejected the invitation, saying that it did not want to have any dealings with Pakatan Harapan partner DAP.

Tengku Razaleigh reminded party members of his 1987 fight with Dr Mahathir for the Umno presidency had resulted in the party being deregistered .

He said Dr Mahathir who had piped him to the president’s post by 47 votes, had labelled him, Tengku Abdul Rahman, Hussien Onn and Musa Hitam as troublemakers in order to hold on to his position as prime minister.

“He (Dr Mahathir) deliberately wanted to tarnish us and made sure we could not join Umno Baru

“Actually he was afraid. He banned teachers from holding positions in the party as he was afraid of Musa Hitam,” he said.

Musa was once the education minister one at a time when teachers formed the backbone of the party.

He said Umno split and after that became weak because of Dr Mahathir’s decisions at the time.

Following this Tengku Razaleigh formed Semangat 46 which took on Barisan Nasional in the 1990 general election.

The party entered into a pact with PAS, DAP and Parti Bersatu but failed to unseat Barisan Nasional.

THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT