UMNO members need not worry about the party being deregistered as they will be absorbed into Barisan Nasional and fight the next general election as its candidates, said Mohamad Hasan.

The Umno deputy president said talks of having the party deregistered has come up again after the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission moved to seize its assets over allegations it had received money from 1Malaysia Development Bhd.

He said the party had worked out the possible scenarios that could play out if the party was deregistered by the Registrar of Society over the 1MDB funds.

“If Umno is dissolved, we can regroup to form another party.

“We can take over another party if they don’t allow us to register a new party. Or we can use a vehicle that is synonymous with us, which is BN,” he told delegates at the Jerai Umno division today.

Mohamad said the party had been working on the scenario of being deregistered from the moment Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had said that Umno would be buried when he was in New York last year to attend the United Nations assembly.

He said the party had experimented with BN as its vehicle when it fielded Ramli Mohd Nor as its candidate in the Cameron Highlands by-election last year.

He noted that Ramli was not a member of any party in the coalition but he had romped to victory – this showed that Umno could rely on BN as its vehicle to continue its struggle if Umno was deregistered.

“So if we are deregistered, we shall all join BN en masse. While we are there, we can register a new party.

“If they refuse to let us register a new party, we can contest the next election as BN members. After we win the election, we can form Umno 3.0,” he said, alluding to the fact that the party had been deregistered in 1988 and had regrouped as Umno Baru later. – July 5, 2019.