Hard for Umno to forgive traitors, says Zahid

SM Amin SM Amin Updated 6 years ago · Published on 23 Jun 2019 5:18PM · 4 Comments

Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has railed upon former party members defecting to Pakatan Harapan as traitors, stabbing the party in the back. – The Malaysian Insight pic by Kamal Ariffin, June 23, 2019.

UMNO president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said it was difficult for the party to reconcile with former members who ditched the party for personal interests after last year’s general election.

“It is unpardonable. Their action stabbs the party in the back and is a betrayal of their own race in the fight for its rights and religion,” Zahid said in his address to open the party’s Masjid Tanah delegate’s conference today.

The former deputy prime minister and Bagan Datok MP likened the 17 MPs who resigned to switch to the Pakatan Harapan coalition to the Malay proverb of a bent knife and its sheath.

He said the bent knives must be replaced with straight blades, so they could again fit into the sheath.

“People like these should not be given any opportunities (to return to the party).

“When they were in Umno, they benefitted from a lot of things. Now they are prepared to spit on their race to save themselves,” he said.

Zahid’s traitor jibe was aimed at Masjid Tanah MP Ermieyati Samsudin in particular, who left the party a day after its general assembly last year.

The former Umno Puteri chief, and deputy minister of tourism and culture resigned to be an independent politician.

She has since joined Bersatu.

The reason Ermieyati gave for quitting the party was that it had failed to change to meet the challenges of the new political landscape.

She said the majority of key positions in the party’s leadership were won by ageing veterans.

At the conference, Zahid said the party had hoped the Masjid Tanah division could be a role model when it won all six seats, including parliamentary, it contested in the area.

However, Zahid said that electoral performance had been tarnished by Ermieyati’s defection.

“They have gone against their race by betraying the trust of the people who had voted for them.

“Their names will forever etched in the dark history of the Malays.”

So far, 15 lawmakers have left Umno for Bersatu since the 14th general election last May. With the latest additions, Bersatu now has 26 MPs.

Most prominent of which included former domestic trade and consumer affairs minster Hamzah Zainuddin and former international trade minister Mustapa Mohamed (Jeli), who were among the first to leave the party.

Pakatan now has 129 MPs, 19 short of a two-thirds majority that would all but guarantee constitutional amendments. – June 23, 2019.

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Comments

  • Dear Zahid, you are the traitor. A traitor to the people and to our country.

    Posted 6 years ago by Mohammad Badry · Reply

  • And this moronic ponogoro is the biggest traitor of all.

    Posted 6 years ago by Mokhzani Mohamad · Reply

  • How can anyone who defects to Bersatu which is also a Malay party be considered traitor to his own race? People who did wrong in the party and have caused its loss in GE14 are the real traitors.

    Posted 6 years ago by Tanahair Ku · Reply

  • A traitor to the race is the one who admitted to meet a few Arab ghosts that donated 681 million American pies to another traitor also known as pekan lanun. By the way, this assh@le may claim he's not a Malay anymore but an Indon.

    Posted 6 years ago by Chee yee ng · Reply