Azalina Othman Said told FMT the brickbats directed at Muhyiddin Yassin’s administration – and which led to his downfall – could now be turned against Umno even if a new man, Umno’s Ismail Sabri Yaakob, was now the prime minister.

“One of the biggest concerns the party has is the liability of #KerajaanGagal, the party was quite worried about being associated with it,” she said.

“The emergency proclamation, Parliament shutdown for more than six months, and then again on the last day of the sitting – all that equates to really being answerable to your voters on the ground.”

The former government was routinely criticised for its handling of the pandemic and that was one of the reasons for a number of Umno MPs, including Azalina, retracting their support for Muhyiddin last month.

The loss of support robbed Muhyiddin of his majority and gave him little choice but to resign, paving the way for Ismail to ascend to power.

Azalina said Umno must now be aware that the missteps of individual parties in the government will ultimately reflect badly on Umno as well.

“Unfortunately, Umno is not the government, Umno is just part of the government. Whatever is being done by the government, even if we want it to be split between parties, you cannot really split it clearly. (Umno) will get the spillover of good news and also bad news.”

She said Umno has to be careful in how it charts a new course for the country, particularly as it has coalition components to appease.

“Now we are in the driver’s seat, but not fully. We are not driving on our own, we have co-drivers. So where are we heading? This is something that the party must be extremely careful about, because it will affect the voters’ loyalties,” she said.