Is there a mutiny brewing within UMNO against Zahid?

This could pull the carpet from underneath the unity government

MURRAY HUNTER

After much dissent from grassroots DAP members in Penang against the removal of incumbent chief minister Chow Kon Yeow as CM candidate, and the backtracking of DAP top leadership, there appears to another grassroots revolt erupting, within another party.

Word is coming out, that displeasure over the inability of UMNO party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to secure a pardon for Najib Razak, from a faction within the party, could lead to a potential uprising against Zahid.

A number of delegates at the last UMNO conference demanded a pardon for Najib and blamed Zahid for not securing one. Since the general election there has been much displeasure over Zahid’s presidency of the party. Zahid avoided a challenge from his critics by postponing the party election for the top two posts. He then purged a number of his critics through either expelling or suspending them from the party. Many within UMNO are also disappointed after resolutions at past conference s for “No DAP, no Anwar”, and have lost respect from Zahid for going against party sentiment.

Now Zahid’s supporters within UMNO are turning against him.

Rumour has it that those supporting Najib will boycott voting for BN in the coming state elections. In addition, eight UMNO state assembly persons in the Pahang State Assembly will jump across to PAS after nomination day in the other states, to create a crisis and topple the BN led state government in Pahang, Najib’s home state. In addition, several state assembly people in the Perak State Assembly will do the same thing and threaten the survival of the Pakatan Harapan-Barisan Nasional Perak state government.

The leaderships of both MCA and MIC are extremely disappointed in not being given any seats to contest in the coming state elections, and are seriously considering their future within the BN.

There are also a number of federal UMNO and suspended UMNO MPs are considering resigning their seats to force by-elections. These may include the MPs for Jelebu in Negeri Sembilan, Sembrong and Simpang Renggam in Johor, and Bera in Pahang. There are also more expected.

These resignations could unsettle the unity governments numbers in parliament.

There are a number of factors that are driving this. First is the Najib pardon issue. The second is the way Zahid has been running UMNO. Zahid’s expulsions of high-profile members have cost UMNO a lot, and likely to even cost more.

This possibility will make the upcoming state elections more interesting. I thank a reader and frequent commenter on these pages for his lead.