UMNO Supreme Council member Datuk Dr Puad Zarkashi has lambasted Penang deputy chief minister Dr P. Ramasamy for saying that Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi will remain a thorn in the flesh for UMNO and the unity government so long as he remains party president.
Puad, who is also the speaker of the Johor state assembly, said Ramasamy has forgotten that he himself is a burden to DAP.
“That’s why Putrajaya DAP had urged the party to take disciplinary action against Ramasamy,” he said in a Facebook post.
Puad was referring to how, in 2019, Putrajaya DAP had urged the party’s central leadership to advise Ramasamy from playing up racial sentiments.
In a Facebook post yesterday, Ramasamy had called Zahid the “albatross” around UMNO’s neck and also Pakatan Harapan (PH) as well as the unity government.
He was commenting on the UMNO general assembly’s approval of a motion for the posts of president and deputy president not to be contested in the party polls which must be held by May 19.
Ramasamy noted that UMNO cannot be revitalized without the need to “clean up its corruption-tainted image”, adding that Zahid, who is also a deputy minister and the rural and regional development minister, appears to be the “most tainted leader in UMNO”.
He further pointed out that with no contest for the top two positions in UMNO, an immediate political crisis could have been avoided, although the real challenge for PH and UMNO is securing Malay support in the coming state polls in six states. – Jan 16, 2023
