United Malays National Organisation

History

After the British returned to Malaya in the aftermath of World War II, the Malayan Union was formed. However, the Union was met with much opposition due to its constitutional framework, which allegedly threatened Malay sovereignty over Malaya.

The first phase of the journey of the UMNO party was the result of a combination of 41 Malay associations in the Malay Peninsula at that time led by Ahmad Boestamam who presented a memorandum to Sultan Ismail ibni Sultan Ibrahim who became the Sultan of Johor at that time to reject the Malayan Union proposal brought by the British.

In the second phase, a series of Malay congresses were held, culminating in the formation of the nationalist party, UMNO on 10 May 1946 at the Third Malay Congress in Johor Bahru, with Onn Jaafar as its leader. UMNO strongly opposed the Malayan Union, but originally did not seek political power. UMNO had no choice but continue playing a supporting role to the British colonial administration. The British cooperated with UMNO leaders and helped to defeat the communist insurgency.

In 1949, after the Malayan Union had been replaced by the semi-autonomous Federation of Malaya, UMNO shifted its focus to politics and governance. According to at least one official school textbook published during UMNO's time in government, the party fought for other races once they were at the helm of the country.

In 1951, Onn Jaafar left UMNO after failing to open its membership to non-Malay Malayans to form the Independence of Malaya Party. Tunku Abdul Rahman replaced Onn as UMNO President. In the following year, the Kuala Lumpur branch of UMNO formed an ad hoc and temporary electoral pact with the Selangor branch of Malayan Chinese Association to avoid contesting the same seats in the Kuala Lumpur municipal council elections. UMNO and MCA eventually carried nine out of the twelve seats, dealing a crushing blow to the IMP. After several other successes in local council elections, the coalition was formalised as an "Alliance" in 1954.

In 1954, state elections were held. In these elections, the Alliance won 226 of the 268 seats nationwide. In the same year, a Federal Legislative Council was formed, comprising 100 seats. 52 would be elected, and the rest would be appointed by the British High Commissioner. The Alliance demanded that 60 of the seats be elected, but despite the Tunku flying out to London to negotiate, the British held firm. Elections for the council were held in 1955, and the Alliance, which had now expanded to include the Malayan Indian Congress, issued a manifesto stating its goals of achieving independence by 1959, requiring a minimum of primary school education for all children, protecting the rights of the Malay rulers as constitutional monarchs, ending the Communist emergency, and reforming the civil service through the hiring of more Malayans as opposed to foreigners.

Independence

In Malaya's first general elections in 1959, the Alliance coalition led by UMNO won 51.8% of the votes and captured 74 out of 104 seats, enough for a two-thirds majority in parliament, which would not only allow them to form the government again but amend the constitution at will. However, for the Alliance, the election was marred by internal strife when MCA leader Lim Chong Eu demanded his party be allowed to contest 40 of the 104 seats available. When the Tunku rejected this, many of Lim's supporters resigned, and ran in the election as independents, which cost the Alliance some seats.

In 1961, the Tunku mooted the idea of forming a federation named "Malaysia", which would consist of the British colonies of Singapore, Sabah, Sarawak, and also the British Protectorate of Brunei. The reasoning behind this was that this would allow the federal government to control and combat communist activities, especially in Singapore. It was also feared that if Singapore achieved independence, it would become a base for Chinese chauvinists to threaten Malayan sovereignty. To balance out the ethnic composition of the new nation, the other states, whose Malay and indigenous populations would balance out the Singaporean Chinese majority, were also included.

After much negotiation, a constitution was hammered out with some minor changes. For instance, the Malay privileges were now made available to all "Bumiputra", a group comprising the Malays and other indigenous peoples of Malaysia. However, the new states were also granted some autonomy unavailable to the original nine states of Malaya. After negotiations in July 1963, it was agreed that Malaysia would come into being on 31 August 1963, consisting of Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak. Brunei ultimately decided to opt out of the federation due in part to an armed revolt by the People's Party (Parti Rakyat Brunei) which objected to the formation of Malaysia, and the Sultan of Brunei Omar Ali Saifuddien III's demand that he be recognised as the most senior Malay ruler—a demand that was rejected.

The Philippines and Indonesia strenuously objected to this development, with Indonesia claiming Malaysia represented a form of neocolonialism and the Philippines claiming Sabah as its territory. The United Nations sent a commission to the region which approved the merger after having delayed the date of Malaysia's formation to investigate. Despite further protests from the Indonesian President, Sukarno, the formation of Malaysia was proclaimed on 16 September 1963. Indonesia then declared a "confrontation" with Malaysia, sending commandos to perform guerilla attacks in East Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak). The confrontation was ended when Suharto replaced Sukarno as president. The Philippines, which had withdrawn diplomatic recognition from Malaysia, also recognised Malaysia around the same time.

Post-separation

After the separation of Singapore from the federation, the Alliance leaders focused on continuing its policies. One involved the Malay language, which was the official language of Malaysia. UMNO sought to reduce the reliance on English in government affairs. In this, it was aided by PAS, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, which backed special rights for the Bumiputra, and the strengthening of Islam's position in public affairs. However, the PAP's Malaysian branch, which had now become Democratic Action Party (DAP), took a very strong stance against this, and continued the expelled PAP's call for a "Malaysian Malaysia". In 1968, the newly formed Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia or Gerakan, led by Lim Chong Eu, also adopted the DAP's stance.

Matters came to a head in the 1969 general election. When polling closed on the mainland peninsula (West Malaysia) on 10 May, it emerged the Alliance had won less than half of the popular vote, although it was assured of 66 out of 104 Parliamentary seats available. Much of the losses came from the MCA, thus straining relations between the two parties. However, the Alliance was dealt an even larger blow on the state level, losing control of Kelantan, Perak, and Penang.

A major riot broke out in the aftermath of the election on 13 May 1969. The Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King) declared a national emergency after being advised by the national government to do so. Parliament was suspended, with a National Operations Council (NOC) led by Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Razak Hussein of UMNO, taking over the government. Further polling in East Malaysia as a continuation of the general election was also postponed indefinitely. Although the Cabinet still met under the Tunku as Prime Minister, his role was largely symbolic, with Abdul Razak taking over the role of chief executive.

UMNO backbencher Mahathir Mohamad, who had lost his Parliamentary seat in the election, wrote a letter to the Tunku criticising his leadership. Mahathir organised a campaign with University of Malaya lecturer Raja Muktaruddin Daim, circulating his letter among the student bodies of local universities. Mass demonstrations broke out calling for "Malay sovereignty" and the Tunku's ousting. After the riot, Home Affairs Minister Ismail Abdul Rahman and Abdul Razak agreed to expel Mahathir and former Executive Secretary of UMNO Musa Hitam from the party for breaching party discipline.

The suspended elections in East Malaysia were held in 1970, and restored the Alliance government's two-thirds majority in parliament. On 31 August that year, the Tunku announced the national ideology of Rukun Negara and his planned retirement as Prime Minister in favour of Abdul Razak. He also stated Parliament would be restored the following year.

The New Economic Policy

After Abdul Razak succeeded the Tunku in 1970, he began asserting UMNO's leadership in the Alliance more strongly. When the Tunku led the coalition, he had always consulted Alliance leaders regarding policy—if an Alliance leader objected, the policy was not passed. Under Abdul Razak, UMNO was the base of the Alliance and thus the government. The NOC which he led until Parliament reconvened consisted of 7 Malays, one Chinese and one Indian.

In Abdul Razak's cabinet, the two most powerful men other than him were Ismail Abdul Rahman and Ghazali Shafie, who had declared the Westminster-style Parliamentary system inappropriate for Malaysia. Abdul Razak also readmitted to the party "ultras" who had been expelled, like Mahathir and Musa Hitam. Mahathir gained notoriety after his expulsion from UMNO by authoring The Malay Dilemma, a book promptly banned from Malaysia, which posited that the Malays are the definitive people of Malaysia and thus deserved special rights as the sovereign people of the nation. It also controversially argued that the Malays needed affirmative action to overcome deficiencies in their genetic stock.

The Abdul Razak government announced the New Economic Policy in 1971. Its stated goal was to "eventually eradicate poverty... irrespective of race" through a "rapidly expanding economy" which emphasised to increase the Malays' share in the national economy to a reasonable portion between all the races. The NEP targeted a 30 per cent Malay share of the economy by 1990. The government contended that this would lead to a "just society" ("Masyarakat Adil"), the latter slogan being used to promote acceptance of the policy. Quotas in education and the civil service that the Constitution had explicitly provided for were expanded by the NEP, which also mandated government interference in the private sector. For instance, 30% of all shares in initial public offerings would be disbursed by the government to selective Bumiputeras. The old civil service hiring quota of 4 Malays for every non-Malay's was effectively disregarded in practice; between 1969 and 1973, 98% of all new government employees were Malay. Five new universities were opened under the NEP, two of which were targeted to focus on the poor Malays and Muslim citizens.

Abdul Razak also began shoring up the government by bringing in several former opposition parties into the fold of the Alliance. Gerakan, PPP, PAS, and several former opposition parties in East Malaysia joined the coalition, which was renamed as Barisan Nasional. Barisan was formally registered as an organisation in 1974, the same year in which a general election was held.

Mahathir era

On 24 April 1987, UMNO held its Annual General Assembly and triennial Party election. The then Prime Minister and party President, Mahathir Mohamad, faced his first party election in 12 years, having been elected unopposed since the 1975 UMNO election.

The politics of the Malays, particularly UMNO politics, had undergone a sea change in the first few years of the Mahathir stewardship, and the party presidency was challenged for the second time in 41 years. In fact, in the early 1950s, Tunku Abdul Rahman's presidency had also been challenged by C. M. Yusof, who later became the Speaker of the Dewan Rakyat, but Tunku was not properly considered an incumbent then, being only a care-taker president.

The 1987 contest was a vastly different matter. Mahathir was opposed by his very popular former Finance Minister, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. The press took to referring to Mahathir and his supporters as Team A, and Razaleigh's camp as Team B. Team B included then Deputy Prime Minister Musa Hitam, who was also the incumbent Deputy President of UMNO seeking re-election, as well as Suhaimi Kamaruddin, the former head of UMNO Youth and president of the Belia 4B youth organisation.

Team B was critical of Mahathir's policies, arguing that the Malaysian New Economic Policy had failed to benefit the poor Malays. It also criticised Mahathir's leadership style, alleging he acted unilaterally without consulting other leaders in UMNO and the Barisan Nasional. Team B was also perceived as less Islamist than Mahathir's faction.

Mahathir claimed that the charges against him were groundless, and suggested that his opponents were fracturing Malay unity and were only motivated by greed.

Eventually, Mahathir was returned to office. However, he was elected with such a small majority of 43 (761 against 718 votes) that questions were immediately raised about his mandate. Team B supporters, many of whom had been anticipating a victory of similar margins, suspected that the election had been fixed. The Team B candidate for Deputy President, Musa Hitam, had also been defeated by Abdul Ghafar Baba of Team A, while two of the three Vice Presidents were Team A candidates. The Supreme Council comprised 16 Team A candidates and 9 Team B candidates.

Post-Mahathir

After Mahathir stepped down as President of UMNO in 2003, he was replaced by his designated successor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who became the 5th Prime Minister of Malaysia. Najib Razak, the son of Abdul Razak Hussein, took over as the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia.

In the 11th general election in 2004, Barisan Nasional, under Abdullah's leadership, enjoyed a landslide victory. However, in the 12th general election in 2008, the coalition for the first time fell short of a two-thirds majority in the Parliament. UMNO Chief Ministers were ousted in the states of Selangor, Perak, Penang and Kedah. As a result, Abdullah resigned as President of UMNO and Prime Minister in 2009. He was succeeded by Najib.

Under Najib's leadership, UMNO gained a total of 9 seats in the 13th general election and retook the state of Kedah. Mahathir's son Mukhriz Mahathir became Kedah Menteri Besar. However, in 2015, the 1MDB scandal emerged, implicating Najib and leading to widespread controversy. The scandal severely affected UMNO's reputation, causing internal divisions and public backlash.

In 2018, UMNO was required to hold a leadership election 19 April by the requirements of the Registry of Societies (RoS), to hold a leadership election within five years of the last leadership election, as the last leadership election was in 2013. In April, some UMNO members filed a suit to declare UMNO illegal but was dismissed by the High Court. UMNO announced in May that the RoS had in 2017 allowed UMNO to postpone the election until 19 April 2019.

On 9 May 2018, Mahathir and the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition won the 14th General Election ending UMNO's 61 year long rule as part of the Alliance and later Barisan Nasional coalition. UMNO experienced a mass exodus of rank-and-file members, state chiefs, as well as Members of Parliament in favour of Mahathir's BERSATU and regionalist parties such as Parti Warisan Sabah in the months after the election.

After the general election defeat, UMNO held the UMNO leadership election in June 2018 instead of 2019. Former Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was elected the 8th UMNO president in a three-way contest. He defeated former UMNO Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin and veteran leader Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. The outcome was regarded by political observers as a defining moment in UMNO's post-defeat trajectory, setting the tone for its strategies in opposition and in subsequent coalition governments.

Ideology

UMNO overtly represents the Malays of Malaysia, although any Bumiputera (indigenous Malaysian, a category which includes people such as the non-Malay and usually non-Muslim Kadazan, Iban, Dayak, etc. of East Malaysia) may join the party. The party propagates Ketuanan Melayu, the concept that the Bumiputera, including ethnic Malays, enjoy a special status within the country by virtue of their earlier perceived settlement of the lands that now form Malaysia and as a result of the recognition of Malays in Article 153 of the Constitution of Malaysia.

UMNO is largely seen as socially conservative and in most cases economically liberal with authoritarian tendencies.

Bumiputera policies

In 2018, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad announced the cabinet's decision for the government to "ratify all remaining core UN instruments related to the protection of human rights", including International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and other five previously unratified conventions at a United Nations General Assembly, UMNO, PAS along with various non-governmental organisations, staged an anti-ICERD rally that was held at the Dataran Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur, to protest against the ratifications of the relevant international conventions, due to their perception that these human rights instruments contravene with the special position of the Malays, Bumiputera and Islam within the country; all of which are enshrined within the Malaysian Constitution.

On 23 November 2018, the Prime Minister's Office announced they would not ratify the convention and would continue defending the Federal Constitution, which they said represents a social contract that was agreed upon by all races during the formation of the country.

In 2021, a new equity policy for Bumiputeras in the Twelfth Malaysia Plan (12MP) attracted controversy which were announced by Ismail Sabri Yaakob. It is said to ensure sustainable equity holdings by Bumiputeras, an equity safety net would be launched to guarantee that the sale of shares or Bumiputera-owned firms would only be sold solely to Bumiputera-owned companies, consortium or individuals. Syed Saddiq said that the new rulings were unfair as they would be tantamount to taking equity from the non-Bumiputeras and giving them to Bumiputeras. Former Health Minister, Dzulkefly Ahmad had also described the policy as "suicidal" and claimed that the new policy would only kill the Bumiputera companies economically if that is their intention. He also said that based on the feedback from Malay businessmen, most were against the idea of the new Bumiputera-only policy being implemented. Ismail Sabri announced it after revealing that the government’s target to raise Bumiputera equity ownership to 30% had yet to be achieved. He also announced funding to improve Bumiputera businesses’ sustainability to hit 15% contribution in gross domestic product (GDP) by Bumiputera micro, small and medium enterprises by 2025.

Organisational structure

Supreme Council (2023–2026)

Official source

Leadership

Elected representatives

Dewan Rakyat (House of Representatives)

UMNO has 26 MPs in the House of Representatives.

Government offices

State governments

UMNO has led most states during their Barisan Nasional rule except in Sarawak and Penang, while it never entered Sabah and Sarawak and never led Penang Alliance during Alliance era. Since BN defeat in 2018, it has entered various coalitions in states ruled by Muafakat Nasional/Perikatan Nasional between 2019 and 2022 as well as states ruled by Pakatan Harapan and GRS since 2022.

Pahang (1957–present)

Johor (1957–2018, 2020–present)

Malacca (1957–2018, 2020–present)

Perak (1957–2008, 2009–2018, 2020, 2020–present)

Selangor (1957–2008, 2022–present)

Penang (1957–1969, 1970–2008, 2022–present)

Negeri Sembilan (1957–2018, 2022–2026, 2026–present)

Sabah (1994–1996, 1996–1999, 1999–2001, 2001–2003, 2003–2018, 2020–2023, 2023–2025, 2025–present)

Perlis (1957–2022)

Kedah (1957–2008, 2013–2018, 2020–2022)

Terengganu (1957–1999, 2004–2018, 2019–2022)

Kelantan (1957–1959, 1970–1978, 1978–1990, 2019–2022)

Note: bold as Menteri Besar/Chief Minister, italic as junior partner

Election results