Political pundit: Umno president hopes booting out dissenters will strengthen his position

Dato Peter Minos
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KUCHING, Jan 29: United Malays National Organisation (Umno) president Dato Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi recent act to boot its party members is like ‘memancing di air keroh’ (fishing in muddy water), says political pundit Dato Peter Minos.

Minos opined some things may be surmised from Zahid’s recent move to sack and suspend certain members: Zahid fears his party rivals and lacks self-confidence, perhaps due to his impending criminal court case in April.

“Some say that he (Zahid) cannot get any support to save his own skin from the Prime Minister Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim who reiterated that he has zero tolerance on corruption and the corrupted lot.

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“Maybe the Umno president does not like the PM’s anti-corruption crusade, and so disturbs, and destabilises (his own party), hoping something good for himself,” he said in a statement today.

According to Minos, many cannot comprehend why the Umno president appears to be unaware that by sacking and suspending key Umno members, he is in fact destroying the party.

He said with popular and respected leaders like former Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, Selangor Umno chief Noh Omar and former party vice-president and Sembrong MP Hishammuddin Hussein now out, there is no democracy and no decency in Umno, only fear and terror of the president and his cronies.

“Winning only 26 Parliamentary constituency seats in the last 15th General Election (GE15) out of 222 seats, Umno is ‘almost dead’, as one put aptly.

“Unmo also has zero state assembly constituency (DUN) seats in seven states in the peninsula. If that is not ‘near-death’ to a once formidable party, I do not know what is,” he added.

On Jan 28, Umno expelled Khairy from the party while Hishammuddin was suspended for six years. — DayakDaily

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