Zahid says BN is for ethnic and women’s empowerment, not warlords, amid internal outcry to drop Noh Omar, Zahidi

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 4 — Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi admitted today that there were attempts by certain male incumbent MPs bent on consolidating their power in the “mother of all elections” to the detriment of the coalition’s interests.

In a lengthy Facebook post, Ahmad Zahid said many factors were taken into account to ensure the coalition's victory in the November 19 general election.

However, Ahmad Zahid said some members failed to understand BN's move towards inclusivity and progressive policies, noting that the internal critics deemed its GE15 strategy as “unconvincing”.

“As for gender issues, indeed we have tried our best to accommodate for candidacy to be filled by women.

“We tried our very best but in the course of fulfillment, there have been objections from groups such as the incumbent male representatives unwilling to make way because they want to consolidate their power in Padang Besar, Perlis.

“We also placed a female candidate in Tanjong Karang as a recognition of women’s struggles,” he said, without directly naming anyone.

Incumbent Padang Besar MP Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin and incumbent Tanjong Karang MP Tan Sri Noh Omar were both dropped from the list of candidates that Ahmad Zahid unveiled last Tuesday.

Ahmad Zahid cited BN’s victories in the recent Melaka and Johor state elections, where the strategy of making changes to candidates turned out to have a huge impact on results.

“Before the victory, quite a few have belittled our strategy.

“In combining our strategies towards achieving victory, our struggles cut across gender and ethnicity,” he said.

He said BN is not the only coalition attempting such a maneuver in fielding more women candidates as other political parties too were doing the same.

As for ethnicity, Ahmad Zahid noted that a candidate's selection for a particular parliamentary seat also transcends one's skin colour and gender.

He conceded that there was a need for valued candidates as part of the party's revival for continued relevance.

“In other words, if we were to surmise, ‘it doesn't matter if the colour of the cat is white or black or any gender, so long it is capable of hunting mice’, so no issue arising there is gender or ethnicity bias,” he said.

He also denounced critics hiding behind religion for failing to understand the coalition’s strategy.

“Such desperate accusations from leaders who use religion to remain in political power yet fail to portray the true meaning of struggle,” he said.