KUALA LUMPUR: Umno must swallow the bitter pill that the party is no longer the main choice among the Malays in the general election.
Raub Umno Youth chief Fadzli Mohamad Kamal said the outcome of the 15th General Election (GE15), which ended with Umno winning only 26 parliamentary seats, showed that the party was not only rejected by the Malays in urban areas but those also in rural areas.
The GE15 results, said Fadzli, also showed that not only had Umno failed to compete against other Malay-dominant parties but also failed to restore the confidence of voters in rural areas.
"Like it or not, we must realise that Umno is no longer the Malay party with the most number (of parliamentary) seats.
"Those (Malay voters) who live in cities have long left (rejected the party). Now, there is a growing trend among (Malay) voters in rural areas to reject the party.
"The Malays have started envisioning their future without Umno. We must immediately realise this fact. More Malays have started to feel that they do not need Umno to fight for them," he said when debating the party president's policy speech at the 2022 Umno general assembly here.
Fadzli said he feared the worst for Umno if the party did not pay serious attention to restoring the party's trust deficit issue among the Malays, both in urban and rural areas.
He urged Umno to be honest and transparent in conducting the post-mortem to identify the reason behind the party's disappointing performance in the general election.
At the same time, Fadzli is confident that Umno will be able to move forward and rise above the GE15 dismal performance if the party has the right moral compass.
"If we (party leaders) truly love the party, we must always be ready to accept criticism," he said.
Umno, he said, must find new strategies, including being represented by icons who are clean and free from any criminal offences, to help the party win support from the people.
The party's existing strategies, he said, had failed and were not effective in dismissing allegations hurled against Umno by its political foes.