Zahid should self-reflect, facilitate Ismail Sabri to be Umno president

KUALA LUMPUR - “You must remember the most powerful man in the country is the Prime Minister, not the President of Umno,” says Umno veteran Datuk Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz.

With that being the case, he said anybody who loves the party should ensure and facilitate the current premier Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob to become the Umno President.

The Padang Rengas MP said looking at tradition, past prime ministers namely Tun Hussein Onn, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi were deputy prime ministers first before the party congress endorsed them to be presidents.

“(However) If our man is made the prime minister, then all our party members should work towards facilitating the party to have elections to make Ismail president.

“We all should be working towards that,” he told Sinar Daily in an exclusive interview.

There was no doubt that Zahid had his support, he said, but the former needed to reflect on why as party president he could not become the prime minister.

“It’s not that I don’t support Zahid. I support him but when he is now the president and he is not able to be the prime minister, it is not my fault, it is not Umno’s fault. “He should ask himself why,” he said, adding that if Zahid loved the party, he would give his full support to Ismail.

Nazri said if Zahid becomes prime minister today, he would surely support the latter just as he supported him when he became president in the last party polls.

“I even support until now that he should be the prime minister but when he cannot be - it’s not my fault.

“It’s not my fault, it’s not Umno’s fault.

“He should know why, and if we love the party, then we all should facilitate that the man who is accepted as prime minister should be running our party to avoid all the problems we are facing at the moment,” he said.

Nazri (centre) says Zahid (right) should help facilitate Ismail Sabri (left) to be Umno President as he is the Prime Minister.

Nazri cited instances where Zahid has been difficult and hindering such processes including threatening the people from signing the Watikah (declaration for election candidates) thus all these members supported him in hopes of getting their names signed.

“It doesn’t matter to me if he wants to sign it or not. I’ve been MP for six terms and 19 years,” he said.

For months now Ismail Sabri, who is Umno Vice President, and Zahid had been going on a merry-go-round over whether or not to hold snap polls soon.

Conversation of an early election started as early as November last year when Barisan Nasional won in the Melaka state election and was later further amplified during landslide victory in Johor in March.

During party gatherings, Ismail has been seen to be agreeing and bowing down towards Zahid’s and other top leadership’s insistence on calling for the 15th General Elections (GE15).

However, when the prime minister is on his own - the words seem to be the opposite.

The most recent development saw Ismail Sabri downplaying the possibility of holding GE15 early due to concerns about inflation and the need for economic stability during an interview with Nikkei.

Yet, when Zahid rallied BN to push for an election soon during the BN Convention, Ismail Sabri fell back to his loyal party-man role and said he would not wait one second to dissolve Parliament if the coalition was ready.

This would unlikely settle soon with various Umno leaders still in limbo on when the elections should be called.

Nazri had been aggressively voicing out against the early polls, stating that the voters who would punish BN for holding one out of personal interest, citing the court clusters.

Earlier this week, Nazri told Sinar Daily that the court clusters wanted to go to polls now in hopes of BN regaining control and interfere with the courts to clear their names from any corruption cases