AN UMNO member has scoffed at Bersatu secretary-general Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin’s statement that his party has the potential to “go far”, seeing as how the party had won 31 parliamentary seats in the 15th general election (GE15), just six years after the party’s formation.
According to UMNO Supreme Council member Datuk Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi, Hamzah has forgotten that Bersatu is now getting left behind not just by PAS but also by the party’s MPs who are set to leave the party.
“This is because Bersatu does not have its own grassroots. Its success came from PAS. Bersatu failed to replace UMNO. It doesn’t even have a stronghold state of its own unlike PAS, UMNO and PKR,” he said in a Facebook post today (Nov 24).
“[The lack of grassroots support] will weaken the fighting spirit of Bersatu’s representatives. They will shift their allegiance if not to PAS then to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s leadership.
“Bersatu will be left far behind even before the 16th general election.”
Yesterday, a Malay Mail report quoted the Larut MP as saying that Bersatu’s political potential was apparent from its ability to win 31 seats in 2022’s GE15 just six years after it was officially formed, which he said was an “unprecedented achievement” among Malaysia’s political parties.
“Only we alone [have managed to do this]. Other parties that have been established for decades have not been able to achieve this kind of achievement, so, if we can work hard, we can achieve a better reputation,” he was reported as saying during the annual assembly of the party’s movements.
Bersatu was formed as an UMNO splinter party in 2016 by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, among others, to remove Datuk Seri Najib Razak as the prime minister. – Nov 24, 2023
