KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 6 — Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties will never be as dominant as Umno due to their inability to choose local, winnable candidates to contest seats during elections, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said.
The Umno supreme council member said that MCA, MIC and Gerakan’s biggest weakness was their insistence on using “parachute candidates” to contest seats, resulting in a disconnect between voters in those constituencies and the BN candidates who were not locals themselves.
“Yes, Umno is the dominant party... it is a fact. Why? Because everyone of us, we have our grassroots.
“When we contest a seat, we make sure that the candidate is a local, born there and people know them. Like me I am from Padang Rengas, and even our prime minister, he is a Pekan boy,” Nazri told Malay Mail Online in a recent interview.
“That is the difference between Umno and MCA, MIC, Gerakan. Come elections, they prefer giving seats to their office bearers because their priority is party elections; they want their leaders to be elected representatives.
“That’s why you have parachute candidates… MIC president Datuk Seri Subra, he is Segamat MP but he’s not from there, he’s a Penang boy,” the Umno minister added.
Nazri suggested that BN parties ensure their candidates are locals, and those who really “care” for the constituency and its people.
“Maybe the party president can be given a seat that is a sure-win, but other candidates should be locals, not office bearers.
“That is why they cannot be as strong as Umno,” the Padang Rengas MP added.
In the 2013 general election, BN won 133 out of the 222 parliamentary seats.
Umno won 88 seats, while MCA and MIC only won seven and four. Gerakan won one.
