DESPITE being booted out of office that marked the end of its six decades of power, Umno shouldn’t be written off as it is still a powerful political party, said political economist Edmund Terence Gomez. 

The Universiti Malaya professor of political economy drew parallels between Umno and Kuomintang of China, a major political party in Taiwan. 

“One country which we can compare Umno with is Kuomintang in Taiwan. It has always been compared with Umno, a single dominant party, money politics, patronage, business interests and has a lot of resources. 

“They lost power and then they went back, reconstituted themselves and today they are back in power, and now there is a well-functioning two-party system in Taiwan. 

“I don’t think people in the party (Umno) will simply throw away the party, there will be attempts to salvage the situation and to revamp themselves and come back stronger,” he told a Miracle in May: Malaysia’s GE14 forum in Kuala Lumpur last night. 

He was responding to a question whether Barisan National and its lynchpin party, Umno, could rejuvenate themselves after their worst performance in the recently concluded 14th general election. 

He said Umno would likely go through a period of in-fighting which would actually benefit the country’s largest party. 

“It’s good for Umno to go through this, weed out all the nonsense and re-establish itself as a proper functioning party and try to sell themselves back to the electorate.”

Gomez added that there were many enterprising young Umno members who were not allowed to move to the top because of the warlords in the party.

“They just can’t break into that hierarchy because of the patronage system that is controlled by these warlords, so I wouldn’t be so fast to write them off because it’s a big powerful party, with resources.”

Yesterday, Singapore’s Channel News Asia published an interview with Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin, who said the party needed to relook its structure. 

He also didn’t discount the possibility of opening its membership to Malaysians regardless of race or religion. 

He also gave a harsh assessment on why Umno didn’t see the “Malaysian tsunami” that blew the party out of office on May 9. 

He admitted that the party leadership was complicit and had failed to read the signs that its former president, Najib Razak, was unpopular with the masses. – May 16, 2018.