KUALA LUMPUR – Umno Youth chief Datuk Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki today lambasted “traitors” within the party, saying their actions led to the party’s poor performance in the recent 15th general election (GE15).
In a fiery address at the youth wing’s annual general assembly today, Asyraf said many within the party, including senior party leaders, led divisive campaigns to discredit their own party to advance their own personal political ambitions.
This includes a senior leader who had portrayed himself as a “hero” during the election and called on voters to support him so that he could “cleanse” Umno, said Asyraf.
He stopped short of naming former health minister Khairy Jamaluddin who contested for the Sg Buloh parliamentary seat but lost.
“Some even chose to portray themselves as a hero, even chastising his own party, campaigning that a vote for him is a vote to cleanse Umno that is lost and corrupt, as if he is perfect and the greatest of them all,” Asyraf said to youth delegates at the World Trade Centre today.
“There are those who campaigned by chastising the party and the president. We can’t even imagine how party leaders who have lived in luxury for years on the backs of Umno members.
“Yet this time they choose to criticise the party and its leadership just because they were not named as candidates,” he added.
This was a reference to those whom party president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had axed from contesting in GE15 prior to the polls last November.
This includes the likes of Tan Sri Annuar Musa, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim, and Datuk Seri Tajuddin Abdul Rahman.
Similarly, during his campaign run in Sg Buloh, Khairy had run on the platform that a vote for him was a vote to restore the party and even propel him to the office of prime minister.
Khairy had even called for Zahid to resign due to Umno’s abysmal GE15 result.
Today, Khairy took to Instagram to condemn calls that there be no contest for the president and deputy president posts.
He made his first bid for the Umno presidency in the 2018 party polls when he was youth chief, but he and another contender, Tan Sri Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, lost to Zahid. – The Vibes, January 12, 2023
