Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on May 15, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin urged party members to accept “collective responsibility” in Barisan Nasional’s (BN) huge defeat in the May 9 general election, so that the much-needed “total reform” is carried out.

Khairy also urged Umno members to focus on the short-term priorities before jumping into party election mode, which will happen over the next few months.

“While we await a full post-mortem, we need to accept the collective responsibility in this catastrophic loss,” he told a news conference at the Umno headquarters yesterday.

“Even though Datuk Seri Najib Razak has made the honourable decision to resign [as Umno president], we would not have learnt any lesson if we consider the loss as merely a rejection of Najib and not of Barisan Nasional.

“Only then, we can have a total reform of our party. What kind of changes, we don’t know. We need a period of soul-searching to think about what form Umno and BN take in the years to come,” he added.

In the meantime, Khairy said the party’s short-term focus would be to rally together as a united and capable opposition, and to smoothen the process of division meetings.

“There have been efforts to lure our members of parliament (MPs) at the state and parliamentary levels,” said Khairy.

“The rebuilding process of Umno and BN from the [general election] meltdown needs not only our members, but also those elected as MPs, to stay with us. The people know how to evaluate the government, and want an opposition that can hold the government accountable to fulfil their election promises,” he added. On the impending party election, Khairy said Umno must be led by people who can “completely reform the party” regardless of age or title.

 

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