Mass exodus from Jeli Bersatu as 1,000 members quit

A spokesman says they’re disappointed with the party needing to ‘import’ a PAS candidate for the Nenggiri by-election.

(FMT) – Over 1,000 Bersatu members in Jeli have allegedly quit the party, a week after 480 members from the party’s Gua Musang division announced that they were joining Umno.

The number purportedly includes eight Bersatu branch leaders and 18 Wanita branch heads in Jeli.

A spokesman for the group, Rodzi Muhammad, said they were disappointed with Bersatu’s weak state, which he claimed had forced the party to import a PAS candidate for the Nenggiri by-election.

The Bersatu candidate, Rizwadi Ismail, is a former Gua Musang PAS deputy youth chief. Rizwadi had said that he joined Bersatu at the request of PAS’s top leadership.

Bersatu is no longer the dominant Malay party in Perikatan Nasional (PN)… It is as though Bersatu is being manipulated and beguiled by PAS within PN, Rodzi said at a press conference in Jeli.

The earlier exit of 480 members in Gua Musang had left 12 branches essentially immobilised.

A spokesman for that group said they had lost confidence in the Bersatu leadership, which he said was weak and lacking in bright ideas.

The Nenggiri by-election on Aug 17 will see a straight fight between PN’s Rizwadi and Barisan Nasional’s Azmawi Fikri Abdul Ghani, the Kelantan Umno Youth chief.