PETALING JAYA : Umno will not hesitate to ditch Perikatan Nasional (PN) and go it alone in the next general election (GE15) or even tie-up with Pakatan Harapan (PH) if PPBM continues to punch above its weight to dominate the coalition, a senior Umno leader said today.
Johor Umno deputy chief Nur Jazlan Mohamed warned the party stood to pay a heavy price if it stayed in the ruling coalition and allowed a “weak” PPBM to take the lead at the polls.
Nur Jazlan said there was ‘simmering frustration’ among Umno members against PPBM’s attempts to impose itself as a dominant force in the PN government.
He said, looking at the situation at hand, the party’s grassroots should start thinking “broadly to understand” why the party should explore options such as cooperating with PH component parties, including DAP.
He said it would be easier for Umno to sail through in GE15 and win the most number of seats if it goes alone as most of its rivals will be candidates from PPBM and PAS, adding that the fight would be in the Malay seats, especially in the suburban and rural constituencies.
He said a tie-up between Umno and PKR as well as DAP “may not be a bad idea” as Malaysia needed a more racially-representative government to advance and attain global recognition as a progressive nation.
“Having a government which is more than 90% Malay is not healthy or good for the country. We cannot sideline the non-Malays when it comes to positions in the government,” he said in urging Umno members to give this “PH option” some thought.
Nur Jazlan said PN was doomed to lose the general election even before nomination day because of seat allocation. He said it will simply be unacceptable for Umno to give up the seats it won in the last election, let alone the ones that it lost.
He also said it would be political suicide for Umno to allow PPBM – which he described as the weakest party in PN – to position itself as the dominant force through a proposed grand coalition with Barisan Nasional, PAS and GPS as its partners.
“This is the first time we have a situation where the party of the prime minister (PPBM), controls only one state and that too Sabah, where Umno still has the most number of seats.
“To the Umno grassroots, this is unfathomable,” Nur Jazlan told FMT.
He said PPBM leaders “could not even hold on to the states of Johor and Perak,” citing the change in leadership which saw the menteri besar posts returning to Umno.
“Logic dictates that the strongest party in a coalition (must) be the dominant party, whether it’s via an election or deciding on the posts of prime minister, menteris besar or chief ministers. We need a reset at the federal and state levels,” he said.
Nur Jazlan also advocated the concept of parties cooperating to form the government after an election and not before voting takes place, adding that all parties should be allowed to contest any seats they want.
“The winning parties should then form a coalition and let the party with the highest number of seats nominate their choice for the posts of prime minister, menteris besar or chief ministers,” he said, adding that this could be a way of getting the nation out of the current political mess.
He added that Malaysians should also move away from asking the coalitions or parties to name their prime minister candidate as they should have the liberty of choosing the strongest one among them after an election and not be dictated by pre-election pledges.
Nur Jazlan said the days of a single party winning 80 or 90 seats was a thing of the past, adding that Malaysian politics has gone beyond this.