UMNO grassroots leaders have cited anti-DAP sentiment and anger at Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi as key reasons for the Barisan Nasional (BN) lynchpin party’s wipeout in Terengganu.

Some also said the poor choice of candidates which led to internal bickering also contributed to Umno’s polls whitewash.

Long-time party member, Abdul Rahman Bakar, said the dislike for Zahid was not only among the supporters.

Grassroots members of the party also do not like him, he added.

He said their anger was due to his purge of key party leaders who were not aligned to him.

“Many who came to see me told me they don’t like Zahid. So, I asked them the reasons why they don’t want to support Umno, why they don’t like Zahid.

“The answer they gave was that the purge was unacceptable and they could not tolerate it,” Rahman told The Malaysian Insight.

He, however, said the anti-DAP sentiment was a more significant issue as the Malays in Terengganu simply could not accept the fact that Umno was in alliance with its longtime nemesis in the federal government.

Umno and DAP are parties in Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s federal unity government.

“They feel like they are being forced to compromise the dignity of the Malays when they have to accept DAP.

“The spirit of Malay Muslims is strong here. Moreover, when they see states like Selangor, Penang, and Negri Sembilan where many seats are held by non-Malays from PH, it riles them.

“They feel the need to protect the rights of Malays here, just like in Kelantan and Kedah. To them, if it’s not Malays who must be defended, then who else,” he said.

Umno and the BN were defeated after PAS made a clean sweep of all 32 seats in the state polls last Saturday.

To rub salt in Umno’s wound, PAS also won in the re-run of the Kuala Terengganu parliamentary seat with a majority much larger than what the court disqualified PAS candidate Ahmad Amzad Hashim had obtained in the general election (GE) in November last year.

Ahmad’s majority in the GE was 40,907 votes but in the by-election, his majority was 47,266. He was in a four-way fight in the GE but it was a straight fight in the by-election.

The defeat meant that BN had failed to wrest the parliamentary seat from PAS in three consecutive elections – GE14 and GE15 and the 2023 by-election.

In the previous state election in GE14, BN won 10 state assembly seats and two parliamentary seats while PAS won the other 22 to form the government. BN’s quest to recover from their loss in November’s GE ended in more dismal failure. They lost all eight parliamentary seats they contested.

Meanwhile, Terengganu PH (Pakatan Harapan) leaders who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Umno’s dismal showing was due to internal bickering over the choice of candidates.

They said Zahid’s meddling there in his quest to remain as president had created resentment among Umno members, more so among the grassroots leaders.

“At the state level, the allocation of seats and the selection of candidates without proper strategy were the issue,” they said.

“For instance, BN fielded many candidates who were not favoured by supporters and the grassroots.

“Some of these candidates had previously lost and some never won, yet they were still chosen by the leadership.”

They said BN’s candidate selection was based on selecting people who were aligned with the leadership – “our boys”.

“One of the mistakes BN made was to feature Umno state chairman Ahmad Said as a poster boy in the state election, even though his candidacy was not officially announced.

“Even though his candidacy was not announced yet, Ahmad was also widely tipped to be BN’s menteri besar if the party won the state.

“So, there was resistance because Ahmad had a bad track record when he last held the post.

“He was accused of mismanaging government funds with the construction of many white elephant projects.”

A state leader admitted both Umno and PH supporters have never accepted this political tie up between the two former arch rivals.

“For PH supporters, fence-sitters and first-time voters, they found it awkward to support BN, which is still dogged by corruption issues.

“For Umno supporters, the rejection stems from the lack of concrete explanation about the cooperation between PH and BN,” he said.

“The explanations given by the top leaders of the parties were vague and they did not trickle down to the grassroots.”

He also said BN did not get the support of young people in the polls.

The 70% voter turnout in Terengganu was the highest among six states which held their state elections simultaneously. The total number of voters in Terengganu was 930,894. –  August 16, 2023.