Umno opens the door to Pas while refusing to leave the government

KUALA LUMPUR: Umno president Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has given Umno Youth a mandate to organise a Malay-Muslim rally with Pas targeting one million participants, reopening room for cooperation with the Islamist party ahead of the 16th general election.

In the same winding-up speech at the Umno general assembly yesterday, he insisted his party would not withdraw from the unity government under pressure from others, challenging critics instead to force a general election or a no-confidence vote in Parliament if they genuinely wanted Umno out.

Umno Youth chief Datuk Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh has been put in charge of organising the rally, named Himpunan Perpaduan Ummah, together with Pas.

“Akmal, I am giving you the mandate, and work well with them. Move the roadshows out to the states before the climax, a mass gathering at the central level,” Zahid said at Dewan Merdeka, World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur.

The roadshows are to begin in the Pas-governed states of Terengganu, Kelantan and Kedah before culminating in the central rally. No date has been announced.

The proposal came from Pas delegates who attended the assembly, and Zahid said he would first seek the agreement of Umno’s own delegates. Any cooperation, he said, had to rest on mutual respect, honesty and the public interest.

The presence of Pas leaders at the assembly’s opening a day earlier had already drawn attention. Pas vice-president Datuk Idris Ahmad, secretary-general Datuk Seri Takiyuddin Hassan, information chief Ahmad Fadhli Shaari and Bachok MP Mohd Syahir Che Sulaiman attended, while Nik Abduh Nik Aziz came as a special guest of the Umno president.

In his policy speech a day earlier, Zahid introduced the idea he calls the Grand Collaboration.

“The Grand Collaboration is not a merger of parties. It is an understanding to avoid a collision that costs us all,” he said, describing the coming general election as the moment that would decide whether Umno recovers the mandate to lead.

The overture to Pas came alongside an insistence that Umno has no intention of leaving the unity government. Zahid, who is also deputy prime minister, said the government exists because of Umno’s support for Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, built on a base of 112 seats made up of 82 from Pakatan Harapan and 30 from Barisan Nasional.

If Umno were asked to leave, he said, that 112-seat base would no longer hold, leaving two paths: a general election for a fresh mandate, or a formal expulsion followed by a no-confidence vote in Parliament. Delegates answered with shouts of “dissolve”.

He also objected to the term Madani government, insisting the name agreed at the outset was the unity government.

Umno deputy president Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan, meanwhile, proposed that the party test Pas’s sincerity by pressing for an early election in one of the four states it governs, namely Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah and Perlis.

“After Melaka tomorrow, let us test how sincere our friends really are,” he said, referring to the coming Melaka state election.

Borrowing the line “one for you, one for me”, Mohamad said two of the four states should go to Umno. He also urged the party to build its own strength rather than lean on the goodwill of others.

Umno and Pas were allied under Muafakat Nasional before that pact collapsed, and Umno has sat in the unity government with Pakatan Harapan since the 2022 general election. In January, Zahid rejected calls to revive Muafakat Nasional, saying his party did not want to be bitten by the same snake twice in the same place.