Noh Omar congratulates Zahid for ‘sabotaging’ Umno after party’s poor showing in six state elections
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 14 — Former Selangor Umno warlord Tan Sri Noh Omar has joined a growing choir of critics calling for Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to step down from leading the party after its latest dismal showing in last weekend’s six state elections.
The former Tanjong Karang MP who was sacked from Umno last January for purported political sabotage, told Zahid to take responsibility for the party’s latest electoral losses, The Star reported today. “I want to congratulate the Umno president for sabotaging his own party. Why didn’t he help his party candidate campaign in Sungai Burong last Friday?
“Instead, he went to Permatang, which was being contested by a PKR candidate.
“So, who is the one that sabotaged the party? Why would a party president put more importance on another party but not his own,” Noh was quoted as saying at the Tanjung Karang tallying centre last Saturday night after the polls results were announced.
In last Saturday’s Selangor state election, the Sungai Burong seat was won by Perikatan Nasional’s Mohd Zamri Mohd Zainuldin from PAS who garnered 15,447 votes against Umno’s Mohamad Khir Ramli who got 8,605 votes.
Noh’s daughter, Nurul Syazwani contested in the Permatang seat under the Perikatan Nasional (PN) banner, wresting it from Pakatan Harapan (PH) by garnering 12,850 votes against PKR’s Mohd Yahya Mat Sahri who got 11,122 votes.
Nurul Syazwani quit Umno to join Bersatu after her father was sacked.
“The state election results from the polling streams show that many young voters in the Malay belt have chosen Perikatan over Barisan. The majority vote in Sungai Burong was over 6,000, which has never happened before,” Noh was quoted as saying.
The former six-term Tanjong Karang MP has since campaigned for PN without joining any of its component parties, and vowed to make the northern Selangor state seat a stronghold for the Opposition coalition.
According to Noh, Umno’s losses in the northern Selangor seats were Zahid’s fault as the latter ran the party without consensus from other senior office bearers.
One of the earliest politicians to demand Zahid’s resignation as Umno president was its party veteran Tan Sri Idris Jusoh who minced no words in blaming the deputy prime minister for the party’s “100 per cent” defeat in the Terengganu state election.
Since then, Pasir Gudang MP Hassan Abdul Karim from PKR, the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition’s newest teammate in the unity federal government, has also urged Zahid to quit.
Umno was the only BN party to contest in this year’s state elections and won on;y 19 seats out of a total of 108 it contested it across the six states — Selangor, Terengganu, Kedah, Kelantan, Negeri Sembilan, and Penang.
