A challenger to Malaysia’s prime minister kicked off a campaign in the ruling party yesterday to oust him, saying the party has become a leaking ship that needs to be fixed after its recent election debacle.
Razaleigh Hamzah, chairing a special divisional meeting of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), said weak leadership, corruption, arrogance and a lack of democracy in the party had led to the ruling coalition’s worst-ever election showing.
The party has become a “faulty ship that can sink anytime because its captain is weak and often hands the rudder to the crew,’’ the 71-year-old lawmaker and former finance minister said.
But he said party leaders are in denial because they refuse to listen to criticism and instead pin the blame on external factors.
“Don’t they realize that UMNO’s main flaw that led to the disaster ... is a weak UMNO leadership, including some UMNO ministers who don’t have a good personal and ethical track record,’’ Razaleigh told about 5,000 party members at the meeting in northeast Kelantan state.
He didn’t name anyone.
“We need to discuss the problems in our own house and find the true and right path to make ourselves better and prevent a situation that may become worse in the next general election,” Razaleigh said.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is also the party president, has rejected calls for him to step down following March 8 general elections, which plunged the party into its gravest crisis in history.
The party, the linchpin of the ruling National Front coalition, retained power in the polls but with only a simple majority in parliament. It lost its traditional two-thirds majority and, more significantly, lost five states to the opposition.
Abdullah, who claims to have the full support of his party, is to seek re-election as party president in December. Razaleigh, who plans to run against Abdullah, said UMNO is seen as a “Malay fanatical’’ party by non-Malays and as corrupt by its own Malay supporters. Malaysia has large ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities.
Razaleigh reiterated calls for an open contest for the party leadership in December’s polls, saying strict nomination rules should be abolished because they are undemocratic and encourage vote-buying.
At present, a candidate must be nominated by 30 percent of the party’s 191 divisions, which is hard to achieve by someone not endorsed by the party leadership. The party president automatically becomes the prime minister.
“To save the party and make it more relevant, efficient, strong and progressive, democracy must be restored. The quota system must be abolished,’’ Razaleigh said.
Four other UMNO Cabinet ministers have also endorsed calls for the nomination quota to be removed, highlighting Abdullah’s weakening control over power in Malaysia.
On Tuesday, hundreds of UMNO supporters met in Kuala Lumpur to demand Abdullah resign over the election results.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS