KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 — Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has called for direct elections in Umno at all levels as well as term limits for president and state chiefs.
The Gua Musang MP, who has time and again been frustrated in his bid for the party presidency, made this statement on local cable television station Astro Awani tonight.
“Umno should democratise. Members will elect delegates, division leaders and also central leaders. It should not be left just to delegates. It is not accurate and not right,” the Kelantan prince said.
“We should give the power to members. They have paid up their membership, why are we afraid of them?” he said.
The former Finance Minister came close to leading the party when he narrowly lost to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed in the 1987 Umno polls, leading to the latter introducing a nomination system whereby a candidate for president must be nominated by at least 30 per cent of divisions.
Tengku Razaleigh has never succeeded in gathering the necessary nominations in a number of bids.
The influential Umno leader who has been in the news recently for several other liberal suggestions, also added that state chiefs should no longer be appointed but elected by members and only allowed to serve a maximum of two terms.
The president should also be limited to three terms, he added.
“I feel state leaders are weak and some brought defeats to Umno. They should be sacked in favour of younger leaders as desired by the people.
“If a leader stays for too long, people get bored as there are no new ideas. I think three terms is enough as it will be for nine years. In the US, the president gets two terms, which is eight years,” he said, referring to how the president of Umno is also the de facto prime minister in the Barisan Nasional government.
“There is no need to hold power for tens of years. It will not bring change in leadership and policies,” he said, in an apparent reference to Mahathir, who after founding father Tunku Abdul Rahman, PM for 13 years, was the only man to be premier for more than 10 years.
When asked on the show why Umno has never adopted such a policy in its election process, Tengku Razaleigh said that it was a puzzle as the leaders should know that this move was what the people wanted based on feedback.
“This lack of awareness has led to defeats. If we have been in power for over 50 years due to the support of the people, why are we now not aware of what is felt by them?”
He added that in the past, Umno had been open to all views and was considerate of the interests of non-Malays.
But despite the electoral setback of last year’s general elections, Tengku Razaleigh said that Umno has not listened to the message that has been sent.
“Up to now, I do not see any change by Umno since the 12th General Elections. Even though it was a big defeat to lose five states including the most developed and wealthy, our attitude still has not changed. We are perceived to still be arrogant and proud and behave as if we still have absolute power,” he said.
Via telephone, Deputy Minister for the Entrepreneur and Cooperative Development Ministry Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah also gave his view on the show that the people wanted more than just rhetoric.
“People now are smarter and they want a change that is of substance. They want more integrity, good governance and a change in methodology. People are going to compare the performance of state governments under Pakatan Rakyat and Barisan Nasional,” he said.
Political analyst Khoo Kay Peng added that Barisan Nasional had changed but in an extreme way which was not what the people had asked for, citing the continued dominance of Umno in government decisions as well as the power grab in Perak which he claimed component parties were uncomfortable with.
“It is not difficult for Umno to get feedback but the question is whether they are willing to accept the reality of the information,” he added.
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