UMNO is spoiling for snap elections with a plan to restore Najib Razak as prime minister, DAP youth chief Howard Lee said.

Lee said the latest indication that Umno will ditch Bersatu as allies in the current Perikatan Nasional (PN) government was Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s meeting with his predecessor, Najib, last night.

Zahid had posted about the meeting on his social media today, saying “We are ready for GE15. Are you all ready to be with us?”

“Umno will have no problems with ‘going for broke’ in its quest to return to absolute power without having to play second fiddle to Muhyiddin’s Bersatu.

“Zahid’s latest Facebook posting on their readiness for GE15 is a crystal clear indication that Zahid and Najib are likely to have reached a deal for Najib’s return as Umno president. The optics is clear.

“The strength of Najib’s base within Umno’s culture and structure of patronage is still very much uncontestable,” Lee said in a statement today.

Lee added that Umno will have an advantage if snap elections are called, because the party’s grassroots and machinery are active, coupled with a possibly low electoral turnout due to Covid-19, as well as voters’ disillusionment from the political turmoil this year. 

“The Umno grassroots and party machinery have been preparing for snap polls, and the clarion call to war is loud and clear.

“This would mean that Najib will be the prime minister if Umno and whoever they choose to work with were to achieve parliamentary majority with a new slate.”

With Zahid and Najib’s meeting, Lee said Umno was clearly sending a message that it does not need nor want Bersatu as an electoral coalition partner.

“Umno and Muhyiddin’s Bersatu’s marriage of inconvenience was always, and will become increasingly untenable.

“It would be no surprise to see Umno MPs withdrawing support to trigger snap polls to clean the slate,” said Lee, who is also Pasir Pinji assemblyman.

Zahid’s meeting with Najib comes amid reports of a campaign to oust the latter as Umno president.

Johor Umno deputy liaison chief Nur Jazlan Mohamad, however, told The Malaysian Insight this attempt had failed and that Najib had played a role in stopping it.

In March, Umno became part of the PN ruling pact by supporting Muhyiddin Yassin as the prime minister.

However, there are complaints from the party that it has to play second fiddle to the much smaller Bersatu in the new government.

In Johor, Umno and Bersatu MPs are still fighting over positions, with talk that the PN government there which took over the state from Pakatan Harapan (PH) after the change in federal government, could collapse.

A disappointed Bersatu deputy minister is also said to be mulling a return to PH.

Zahid and several other top Umno leaders who face criminal trials have not been given cabinet positions by Muhyiddin.

PH, meanwhile, has been alluding that Umno is the real power behind the federal pact, and that Najib is planning to make a comeback as the prime minister. – June 3, 2020.