JOHOR BARU, June 29 — A Johor Umno grassroots leader has accused party divisions of practising favouritism, which, in turn, has affected the chances of other candidates contesting posts.
This comes just a day before Umno holds its leadership elections.
“This will lead to other party members not being given a fair and equal chance to contest at the division level.
“It also creates conflicts of interest within the division and party. Many have forgotten that the Umno struggle isn’t about just one person, but also about giving an opportunity to all,” Azlan Bakti Omar Baki said when met in Skudai here today.
The Skudai Umno branch chief, who will be contesting as the Iskandar Puteri Umno division committee member, alleged that such practices are still rampant and claimed that they were endorsed by the division chief.
In the case of his own division, he claimed that four family members were “voted” into Iskandar Puteri Umno leadership posts.
The division’s vice chief, Youth chief, Puteri chief and Youth vice-chief are understood to be siblings and a cousin.
“To make matters worse, the division’s deputy chief post is also linked to the four as he is their uncle,” said the 31-year-old businessman.
Azlan, who has over 10 years of experience in grassroots politics, said despite Umno’s defeat in Johor, some leaders or division warlords still had bad practices that could lead to nepotism and further erode the party in times of renewal.
“A good example is the controversial “papan” or “cai” system that can be easily manipulated by party hopefuls and their line-ups for division posts,” he claimed, referring to the internal Umno-preferred candidate name line-up that was commonly used, adding that this fuels the perception that party polls are dirty.
Azlan said that such bad practices were the reason some Umno members had given up on the party or also voted for the Opposition during the recent 14th general election.
“Change must be immediate as this is the time that division chiefs make way for capable, younger members who sincerely want change for the party.
“Basically, Umno needs more transparency and to rid itself of old habits that can destroy the party,” said Azlan.
Of late, there have been calls for Umno members facing tomorrow’s party elections to have the will to reform the party.
This sentiment was also echoed by the party’s presidential hopefuls Tan Sri Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Khairy Jamaluddin in the run-up to the polls.
Tomorrow will see more than 117,000 Umno members from branch and divisional levels selecting the new leadership line-up to chart the future direction of the party that was nearly decimated in the recently concluded general election.
