Stop holding EGMs - Pak Lah

Datuk Abdullah Badawi wants Umno divisions to stop holding extraordinary general meetings (EGMs) to discuss the party’s problems and calling for leaders to step down.

The party president said there was no need to because such actions would split the party an would only cause the party's attention on rebuilding the party to be “diverted.”

So far the Gua Musang division in Kelantan has proceeded with an EGM which Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah proposed as an effort towards finding ways to rehabilate the party following its massive losses in the March 8 general election.

The other divisions which have held theirs are Cheras and Batu. The Bandar Tun Razak and Pasir Mas divisions will hold their EGMs on May 1 and 3 respectively.

The star has the report:

“There is no need,” party president Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi told reporters after chairing the party supreme council meeting last night.

“We have been given the mandate to form the Government and we need to focus on our work. We shouldn’t make people feel that we are not focusing on our duties and responsibility to them.

“But we are still chaotic and fighting among ourselves and this is not the image we want them to have of us. We don’t want the people to say 'you are all busy with your party problems and not paying attention to what we want you to do',” he added.

Abdullah stressed that Umno needed to pay attention to urgent issues such as price increases and shortage of food supply and reforms that the people were demanding.

“The time will come for us to have our (annual general) meeting and that is when we will decide. If you say you want to send a message, there is no need. There have been many messages sent in the newspapers and many have issued
statements.

“But if I talk like this they will say that Pak Lah can speak like this because he is also involved. I am saying this for everybody. If I don’t say it who else is going to say it?”

Advising Umno members to strengthen and unite the party, Abdullah said the people would support Umno if it could prove that it would not be side-tracked by internal bickering.

“The party’s democratic process will go on, and we can vote (for the leaders). There’s no need to create hoo-ha,” he said.