KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 9 — The apparent exodus from Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia has continued on with the party losing yet another of its supreme council members today, just barely two days after the party’s founder Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced the formation of a new party.
Today, Ulya Aqamah Husamudin declared that he was exiting Bersatu, a party with whom he was the 60th member to be registered and where he was a supreme council member.
“With this statement, I respectfully relinquish all of my positions at the national level and at the Pokok Sena division level,” he said in a statement today that was provided to Malay Mail.
Other than being a Bersatu supreme council member, Ulya Aqamah was also the information chief of Bersatu’s youth wing Armada and the Pokok Sena division vice-chief.
Thanking those who had given him guidance and the opportunity to serve, Ulya Aqamah went on to say that he hoped Bersatu would “re-evaluate the foundation of its original struggle and return to the objectives of the party’s founding”.
In Ulya Aqamah’s statement, he did not say what his next steps would be.
On August 7, Dr Mahathir announced the formation of a new party that has yet to be named, hours after his joint bid with several other MPs to seek legal recognition and restoration of their Bersatu memberships failed in court.
Also on August 7, Bersatu’s Datuk A. Kadir Jasin wrote in a short statement on his Facebook post to say that he had quit the party on August 6 through a letter sent to the party’s works secretary on the same day.
Bersatu supreme council member Tariq Ismail Mustafa, who is also one of the earliest party members as the 51st to be registered as a member, had yesterday also quit the party.
Tariq Ismail had cited his personal beliefs and said the “ends do not justify the means” when explaining his decision to quit Bersatu, appearing to indicate that the party had parted from its initial struggle of rallying against corruption and abuse of power to shape a dignified nation with integrity.
Yesterday, Abu Bakar Yahya on his Facebook post also announced that he was as Bersatu’s 999th member quitting Bersatu with immediate effect, as he remains aligned to Dr Mahathir’s struggle.
Abu Bakar, Ulya Aqamah and Tariq Ismail were among four members of the Bersatu supreme council who had walked out of a June 4 meeting, as they had insisted that the membership termination of Dr Mahathir and four other MPs were unlawful.
In a May 28 letter, Bersatu had in a letter informed Dr Mahathir and four other MPs that their party membership had ceased with immediate effect, due to their decision to sit in the federal Opposition bloc during the May 18 Dewan Rakyat proceedings instead of the government bloc with MPs supporting Muhyiddin’s Perikatan Nasional administration.
Following Dr Mahathir’s August 7 announcement of a new party to be centred on fighting corruption and kleptocracy, news reports have streamed in of resignation by Bersatu party leaders and members.
This includes Selangor’s Jeram assemblyman Mohd Shaid Rosli who yesterday quit the party to join Dr Mahathir’s new party, Klang Bersatu division chief Datuk Syed Abdillah Syed Abd Aziz who yesterday quit along with his committee members and said 10 branches under the division involving over 2,800 members were automatically dissolved, and the mass resignation of the Langkawi Bersatu division’s committee members today.
