Khairy: Umno at the crossroads

KUALA LUMPUR: Former Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin has hit out at his party for harping on race-based issues instead of making an effort to transform the party.

He lamented how Umno was at the crossroads in having to decide whether it should take the right-wing path or be neutral.

“If you go to the right, you may briefly win cheers. But it’ll be destroyed in 10 to 15 years. The middle road is not easy. The grassroots will find it difficult to understand. But that is the option to survive.”

Khairy, who is Rembau member of parliament, tweeted that the new Umno leadership was playing up Malay sentiments by harping on the appointment of non-Muslims as attorney-general (Tommy Thomas) and chief justice (Tan Sri Richard Malanjum).

“Since the party election, what has the party achieved? Playing up racial sentiments and raising funds for former party president. There is nothing wrong with showing support and solidarity to Datuk Seri Najib Razak. But that can’t be all for the new Umno.

“We received a death blow in the 14th Gneral Election and still, we are deaf to the people’s voices,” he tweeted, adding that such issues were small compared with economic and social issues.

He said the reason he was with the party was because he believed Umno could be an umbrella for Malays, with its values, such as being moderate, taking the middle ground and celebrating diversity.

He, however, said he did not agree with racism that had reared its head since the party election.

“I did not accept any offers for positions after losing in the (party) election because I need to have the freedom to speak up in the party. Let there be many voices in Umno.

“Some have labelled me liberal. What is important is that there is a dissenting voice in the party.”

Before last night’s tweets, Khairy had not commented much after the handing of duties to his successor at the Youth and Sports Ministry.

He said he had no intention of jumping parties.

On Khairy’s tweets about Umno, a Twitter user replied to him, “Standby laa nak lompat (Standby, going to jump).”

To that, Khairy replied he was not jumping anywhere.

“I will always be with Umno. I just want to fix my ‘house’ so that it doesn’t remain extreme rightwing and racist.

“You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one,” Khairy tweeted, ending his response to user @DIYSAR with a line from a song by The Beatles titled Imagine.