Sabah Umno Youth delegate first non-Muslim to speak at its AGM

For the first time in Umno Youth's history, a non-Muslim member is today given the opportunity to deliver a speech at a debate session in its annual general assembly.

Busiau Ampirak (photo) from Sabah became the first non-Muslim Umno member to do so when he represented Pensiangan Umno Youth division during the party's meeting at the Putra World Trade Centre, Kuala Lumpur.

"On behalf of Sabah Umno, we would like to thank a million times and express our admiration of the Umno Youth chief's leadership for giving this big opportunity to Sabah Umno Youth to send a non-Muslim to speak on behalf of Umno fighters.

"This is the first time in Umno's history," said Busiau, who was the last debater at the debate session, which was attended by over 1,000 delegates and observers.

Busiau, who was clad in Murut traditional attire, said Sabah Umno has more than 560,000 members.

According to him, 158,000 of these members are of the Kadazan, Murut and Dusun ethnicities, including 97,000 non-Muslim bumiputeras," he said.

He also extended a request to the party leadership to make use of its multi ethnicities as a strength.

"We have many leaders in Umno who are from the non-Muslim Bumiputera group.

"The party should support and push forward this group as icons to attract the interest of other non-Muslim bumiputeras to join Umno," he said.

Meanwhile, another delegate from Sabah, Fadli Juanas, claimed that Sabah Umno had fully recovered from mass exodus of its leaders following its defeat in the 14th General Election last year.

"Actually, Umno/BN had already won and formed the (state) government during the 14th GE. But because of the betrayal of frogs who crossed to the rival party after winning on BN tickets, Umno and BN lost its power in Sabah.

"And once again Sabah Umno was given a shock when 22 division leaders abandoned Umno to join PPBM (Bersatu). But today, Umno has fully recovered," Fadli claimed.

The man who hailed from Kota Belud also told delegates that the political scenario in Sabah is very different than in the Peninsular.

This was why Sabah Umno had decided to request for autonomy so that they can carry the party's struggle there accordingly.

For the record, Umno leadership had prior to this accepted Sabah Umno proposal for them to be given autonomy to determine their way forward.

Deputy president Mohamed Hassan had also confirmed that Sabah Umno would pick the candidate for the upcoming Kimanis by-election and submit the name to the central leadership for deliberation. - Mkini