Speaking to FMT, Mustafa Ishak of the National Council of Professors said the party’s loss of power through the 14th general election should prompt it to recognise that perhaps the days of race-based political parties were over.
He said the idea of a multiracial Umno was not as novel as it might seem to some of its members, adding that this was mooted in 1951 by the party’s founder, Onn Jaafar.
“Umno needs to learn from its loss,” he said. “It has to do some soul searching on how to remain relevant. Clearly, it has been out of touch.”
It would be most important for the party to get out of the denial mode, he added.
Mustafa also speculated, without elaborating, that Umno president Najib Razak might make way for a new party leader.
Another academic, Awang Azman Pawi of Universiti Malaya, attributed Umno’s loss at the polls to the stubbornness of its leaders in their support of the party president despite signals of discontent from the public, including the Malays.
“Many Malays stopped supporting Umno because its Supreme Council and division chiefs continued to support president Najib Razak while the community at large didn’t,” he said.
He said these leaders knew that the people did not want the goods and services tax and mega projects such as the East Coast Rail Link, and were also aware that the 1MDB issue had diminished members’ support for the party.
He said Umno would be doing itself good if it learnt from its electoral loss to open itself to change.
Azman also said he believed Pakatan Harapan would maintain pro-Malay policies in line with provisions in the Federal Constitution.
Umno was founded on May 11, 1946 in Johor Bahru. It subsequently formed an alliance with MCA and MIC. The Alliance coalition later morphed into Barisan Nasional, a grouping of 13 parties with Umno as the lynchpin.
Until the recently concluded general election, all six prime ministers were from Umno.