Malaysia’s Umno gives ‘second chance’ to sacked members in bid to win back young voters

KUALA LUMPUR – Umno is said to be calling on former members, who were sacked or suspended for criticising the party’s top brass or worked with their political rivals in Malaysia’s 2022 general election, to come back to the fold as it tries to regain support from the country’s young voters.

Party insiders are hoping that this “second chance” would be taken up by former Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin,

who was sacked in January 2023,

and former Umno information chief Shahril Hamdan, who was suspended at that time for six years. Both have become more popular after they were ousted from the Malay party.

But Umno members are purportedly wary of taking back old and quarrelsome former leaders, such as former Cabinet ministers Tan Sri Noh Omar and Tan Sri Annuar Musa.

Datuk Seri Jalaluddin Alias, a member of Umno’s supreme council – the party’s top policymaking body – said on May 26 that the party is offering a second chance to those who were sacked or suspended.

He told The Straits Times that giving second chances to former members is not new, citing the return of former prime minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, to the party in 1972 after his sacking in 1969 as an example, and pointed out that the supreme council discusses such matters from time to time.

“Umno has gone through various trials and challenges and faced many problems. The uniqueness of the party is that when faced with problems, it adopted methods to overcome them,” Mr Jalaluddin told reporters after attending a party event on May 26.

Umno’s president Zahid Hamidi had pushed for a purge as he shored up his position following the party’s disastrous performance in the November 2022 general election, targeting members he said had worked with rival parties and those who sought his ouster.

Also suspended in January 2023 was former vice-president Hishammuddin Hussein, who has since kept a low profile.

“Khairy is very popular and can help us regain lost ground with the young Malay voters. When we lost him, we also lost the support of many Umno youth,” said a member of the party’s women’s wing from Perak, who requested anonymity.

But she said that the older leaders – such as the two ex-ministers Mr Noh and Mr Annuar – would not add value to Umno, a party that dominated Malaysian politics for decades until it lost power in the 2018 national polls in the wake of the scandal involving the 1MDB state fund.

Umno and the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition it leads fared even worse in the 2022 polls.

BN – which has 30 lawmakers in the federal Parliament, compared with 113 when it won the 2013 general election – is now part of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s multi-coalition government, which is dominated by the Pakatan Harapan alliance.

Both Mr Khairy, 48, and Mr Shahril, 38, have not commented on whether they would be interested in returning to Umno’s fold.

The two men are hosts of a weekly podcast Keluar Sekejap (Out For A While), where they discuss issues ranging from government policies and the struggling economy to the war in Gaza.

The popular podcast, with 185 videos and 318,000 subscribers on YouTube, has raised their standing as credible commentators on hot-button issues of the day.

Professor Kartini Aboo Talib, an academic at the National University of Malaysia (UKM), said the podcast can help the duo strengthen their positions and reach out to not only Malay youth but also other ethnic groups.

But Mr Khairy and Mr Shahril should perhaps remain outside the party, said Prof Kartini, who is deputy director at UKM’s Institute of Ethnic Studies.

“They should play the third force that critically scrutinises the government with no holds barred, unless they enjoy the power to act better as agents of change,” she added.

An Umno division youth chief from Kedah, who requested anonymity, said that while Mr Khairy and Mr Shahril’s return would rejuvenate the party, it could be detrimental to them as long as Mr Zahid remains the president, seeing that he was instrumental in their departure.

Mr Zahid is one of the two deputy prime ministers in the Anwar administration, but his standing in the party has been damaged by the purge.

Outside the party, his image has been badly hurt after he was granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal in September 2023 from 47 corruption charges, which critics link to his affiliation with Datuk Seri Anwar.

“We need to ask ourselves why we need to support a party that is clearly damaged by its leaders, irrelevant, and rejected by the public,” said Mr Annuar, the former Cabinet minister, in a statement on May 28, in response to the “second chance” offer.

Dr Oh Ei Sun from the Singapore Institute of International Affairs said the offer is an indication of Umno’s move to regain footing among both the rural conservative and urban Malays.

But he added that the backpedalling could be embarrassing for Mr Zahid as many of the sacked and suspended members were powerful leaders themselves.

“Zahid would, of course, have to realise that these are extremely ambitious figures, which was why he kicked them out in the first place. He would have to suffer their renewed political onslaught should they return,” said Dr Oh.