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For once-dominant UMNO, playing second fiddle is as good as it gets
With PAS on the rise and the Malay vote split, survival as a junior partner in PM Anwar’s government is the least-worst outcome for Malaysia’s grand old party.
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Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister and UMNO president Zahid Hamidi speaking at the Jan 16 UMNO General Assembly.
PHOTO: BERNAMA
In the past, such was UMNO’s status as Malaysia’s unrivalled political force that when its party general assemblies were held, the nation’s attention – and indeed that of Malaysia-watchers around the region – would be fixed on it.
Set up as the political vehicle for Malay nationalists in 1946, UMNO, or the United Malays National Organisation, governed for decades as a member of a broader, multiracial Barisan Nasional alliance. Still, everyone knew who really called the shots – as UMNO went, so did the country.
