KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 20 — Umno members must accept yesterday’s 15th general election results that saw the party and the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition it leads limp home behind its rivals, its Sabah chief Datuk Bung Moktar Radin said today.
Bung, who is also Sabah deputy chief minister, added that it was Umno’s worst loss in history. He said the party must now find a “pragmatic” way to move forward. “It’s OK. We had offered national stability and prosperity but the people have rejected it, so we must now strive in another direction,” he told reporters when exiting the Umno supreme council meeting at the Umno headquarters here. Just minutes earlier, Umno chief Tan Sri Noh Omar had exited the meeting and announced his resignation as Selangor Umno chief giving a loss of faith in party president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s leadership as his reason.
Bung commented on the matter saying that every party will have to go through “transformations” but stressed that Umno and BN will continue to serve the nation.
Bung was among the few seasoned Umno leaders who managed to keep his Kinabatangan seat with a majority of 4,330 votes over his closest rival from Warisan Mazliwati Abdul Malek, in the fraught general election.
Others who also survived were Umno deputy president Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan who won Rembau in Negri Sembilan, and Datuk Seri Azalina Said Othman who retained Pengerang in Johor.
Among the prominent Umno colleagues who fell were former health minister Khairy Jamaluddin who moved from Rembau to Sungai Buloh in Selangor, and Shahril Hamdan who quit as Umno information chief after losing Alor Gajah in Perak.
