50 Umno Jelutong Members Leave Party

PENANG, July 29 (Bernama) -- Fifty members of the Jelutong Umno division announced their resignation from the party Tuesday because of disappointment over the dissolution of 17 branches of the division recently.
Kampung Paya branch member Ahmad Din, who represented the group, claimed that the Penang Umno's action in closing the branches was done without checking.
"We regret that they (Penang Umno)closed our branches without checking and (state Umno liaison secretary) Datuk Azhar Ibrahim had misled reporters when he said that he had investigated the membership of the affected branches by sending letters to the branch members concerned," he said in a statement here Tuesday.
He challenged Azhar to produce the letters together with the proof of sending and the chop of the date on which the letters were allegedly sent to the members.
The Umno supreme council which met three weeks ago decided to dissolve the 17 branches following various problems, including non-existent members whose names appeared on their lists.
Azhar had earlier explained that the dissolution was to rehabilitate the division following membership problems and irregularities, among others.
On July 15 all the affected branches gave the Umno supreme council a week to retract the dissolution order, failing which their 4,000-odd members would decide their own political direction and would not hesitate to take court action.
Prior to the dissolution, the Jelutong Umno didision had 42 branches and 13,102 members.
Meanwhile, the division's pro-tem head,Abdul Razak Abdul Rahman urged the state Umno leadership to set up a special committee to investigate this latest development.
"A special committee is needed to resolve this issue as otherwise it can tarnish the image of Umno", he told a press conference here.
Commenting on this development, Azhar said the action of the 50 showed they had no loyalty to the party."If they want to get out,get out.When Dr Mahathir left, also nobody stopped him.Don't try to threaten Umno, Umno is not affraid of threats",he added.

tunku : i don't blame the 50 umno members leaving the party.just see the reaction from azhar, the state umno liaison secretary.he is so arrogant. that's why penang lost badly, it's because this dictatorship and arrogant style of leadership. what you expect to do when you closes down their branches? this is not the time for umno to lose it's members.this group must be opposing pak lah, that's why this azhar guy closed down their branches as there would be no one opposing the boss in penang. penang's bn will never come back to power with people like azhar around.