Less than 24 hours, two major leaders of Umno – Mustapa Mohamed and Anifah Aman have left the party, thus raising questions on the survival of the party..

This was made worse with the widespread news that more Umno leaders were purportedly leaving the party which fell in the last general election after more than six decades of helming the nation.

Rumour that more Umno leaders would follow suit in leaving the party had drawn the attention of a political analyst from Universiti Sains Malaysia, Sivamurugan Pandian.

“These leaders probably feel that the direction of the party was now not in tandem with the original struggle of the party and thus choose to leave the party,”he said when contacted today.

He said that he expected there would be a long list of Umno leaders and members quitting the party, to follow the decision made by Mustapa and Anifah.

Sivamurugan said the situation showed that an internal crisis was brewing up in Umno which could be due to the direction factor currently including the fact that the party appeared to have failed in rejuvenating the 72-year-old party in regaining public support.

Previously, three Umno MPs had also left the party after the 14th general election (GE14) last May namely the Masjid Tanah member of parliament Mas Ermieyati Samsudin who was also a former Puteri Umno Head, Noor Azmi Ghazali (Bagan Serai) and Syed Abu Hussin Hafiz Syed Abdul Fasal (Bukit Gantang).

Ahmad Marthada Mohamed, dean of the College of Law, Government and International Studies of Univerisit Utara Malaysia said the Umno general assembly at the end of the month would be most significant as it would determine the survival of the party.

"There will be demands from the leaders still in the party for Umno to change its direction, change the style of leadership, and to remove leaders who are no longer relevant,”he said, adding that if this was not done, there will be more resignations to join other political parties,.

He expected that the involvement of former prime minister Najib Razak would also be questioned by the grassroots as he frequently made statements that affects Umno although he no longer remained in the leadership lineup.

- Bernama