Stop blame game – Zahid on Umno’s GE15 losses

 

In the wake of the 15th general election (GE15) last November, there were many voices within Umno calling for the resignation of its president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

For the first time in the party’s long history, Umno only won 26 parliamentary seats in the polls, something which many in the party blamed Zahid for.

But now, Zahid said it is time to “stop the blame game”, as Umno’s performance in GE15 was everybody’s responsibility and not his burden to bear alone.

“After GE15, nobody wanted to be held responsible. I was pressured to resign but why me alone?

“What about our poster boy (former prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob), the state liaison chiefs, some of the division and wing heads? It was everybody’s responsibility.

“So stop the blame game. Do some soul-searching and conduct postmortems on why we performed so badly. Then move on, accept the fact that Malaysian politics has entered a new era of dynamism,” Zahid said as reported by The Star Online today.

He said part of the reason for their dismal performance was because Umno lost out on youth votes due to some factors such as internal sabotage.

Another major factor was Umno’s lack of funding in GE15, he said, due to the party’s accounts being frozen at the time.

“In any election, funding is much needed. I am aware that BN, especially Umno, has very little funding.

“Our accounts were frozen and the liquidation of assets was not done. Our opponents used this weakness (against us),” Zahid said.

Despite that, he said, Umno/BN incumbent MPs and state assemblypersons have always been consistent in terms of their service to the constituencies.

He lamented that their service was not valued and alleged that voters took “last-minute rewards” from other parties to determine which candidate they would vote for.

Despite earlier calls for Zahid to take responsibility for Umno’s losses in GE15 by resigning from his position, the Bagan Datuk MP has only further strengthened his hold on the party since then.

In the 2022 Umno general assembly held recently between Jan 11 to 14, delegates voted for a resolution to leave the president and deputy president positions uncontested in the upcoming party election. - Mkini