Umno supreme council member Lokman Noor Adam has mooted that PAS join forces with Umno, MCA, and MIC to form a coalition with a proposed new 'Malay-led multiracial' party.

The new party would be converted from the current BN, Lokman said.

"I would like to propose that BN is converted into a political party that is part of a new coalition.

"Maybe one day we can create a new coalition that has MCA, MIC, Umno, PAS, and maybe a multiracial party that is led by Malays but with membership open to non-Malays," he said at a press conference in the Putra World Trade Centre today.

Lokman said if the new "Malay-based" party can be formed in this new coalition, it could win back support from all races and the youth.

He said this could also combat negative perception "created by DAP" that Umno only looked after the Malays and is a "racial party" despite the party leading BN and taking care of the non-Malays for 61-years.

Earlier in the press conference, Lokman also called on Umno, MCA and MIC to return to its roots.

"I propose that Umno return to its roots of protecting the Malays, MCA protecting the Chinese, and MIC protecting the Indians.

"This formula is what made BN successful before... Look at (former Umno president) Najib (Abdul Razak) he was very moderate and tried to fulfil the demands of all races in this country.

"But in the end, we lost strong Malay support, and some of them ran to PAS," he said.

He said Umno only regained Malay support after it, together with PAS, started fighting for Islam, Malays, and the Malay royalty again.

As such, he said Umno can't be a liberal party, and that it could not compete with the likes PKR on liberalism.

Lokman said this while commenting on the results of the Seri Setia by-election, which saw PAS gaining ground with the support of BN, despite ultimately losing the contest.

PAS' vote share in Seri Setia increased from 10.4 percent in GE14, to 41.4 percent in the by-election.

This is more than PAS and BN's combined vote share of 32.89 percent during the 14th general election.

Meanwhile, in a separate development, former Parti Keadilan Insan Tanah Air (Kita) Zamil Ibrahim rejoined Umno, 20 years after leaving it.

He said his decision to rejoin the party was so he could fight for the Malays.