Recently, five UMNO Supreme Council members became vocal over the party’s bleak future if it decides to back Bersatu and 8th Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin in any snap polls or the coming general election. This response came soon after Muhyiddin Yassin brandished ‘the support’ he claimed he gained from some 12 political parties including those in the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition via his official social media accounts. The ‘support’ vouched for him was reported to be a testimony to their ‘acceptance’ of the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government for Malaysian voters to believe, though PN came into power in the most unexpected way known as the Sheraton Move last February. As more claims of support are shown by the PN leader, more ‘disagreements’ by members of the ally party, especially UMNO, are being circulated in the media.
After Tan Sri Shahrir Samad, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Datuk Puad Zarkashi being vocal about their worries about the UMNO-PN close relationship, Dato’ Seri Nazri Aziz further attempted to mock Muhyiddin Yassin and UMNO by telling the Bersatu president to return to UMNO, replace its president Dato’ Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and resolve the seat allocation issue for GE15. As always, Nazri Aziz keeps on leaving cynical yet challenging statements about his own party and now Muhyiddin Yassin, which have puzzled and infuriated fellow politicians and Malaysians. Meanwhile, in his latest statement, Puad Zarkashi questioned Tan Sri Annuar Musa’s statement on Muafakat Nasional (MN)’s support to Muhyiddin Yassin as PN’s prime ministerial candidate for GE15 by saying that such clarification should have come from the party president, not Annuar Musa. At the same time, the UMNO-Bersatu partnership is getting more challenging as Dato’ Seri Najib Razak was reported to be wanting to wrest Mersing parliamentary seat from Bersatu after the Bersatu Mersing MP Datuk Abdul Latiff Ahmad said that UMNO is now unpopular in Sabah. Being hurt by the statement, Najib Razak and UMNO Youth Chief, Datuk Asyraf Wajdi have called Abdul Latiff to resign from the PN ministerial position. Abdul Latiff, who left UMNO for Bersatu after GE14, was reported to have directly apologized to UMNO and the people for the statement. Sabah UMNO chief, Dato’ Sri Bung Mokhtar Radin, also hit out at Abdul Latiff by saying that the latter is not qualified to evaluate Sabah UMNO as he was a party-jumper.
Notice the small tsunami hitting the two parties? With all these claims, how could Muhyiddin Yassin claim that he is well-supported by UMNO? Will he stand a chance in retaining his position in the coming general election? Will he win or be dumped by his so-called ‘friends’?
By Adillah Jaafar
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