Bersatu leader: How my mom ditched her 40-year Umno membership

Mohd Rafiq Naizamohideen, 31, comes from a family of Umno members. He joined Umno as soon as he turned 18, and went on to become the youngest Umno Youth exco member at the time, at the age of 27.

However, Rafiq's admiration for Dr Mahathir Mohamad catalysed a series of events that set him on the same path as the former prime minister. Today, he is a Bersatu supreme council member as well as the Malacca Bersatu deputy chief.

Despite being the odd one out among his Umno leader siblings, Rafiq managed to convince his 69-year-old mother Hanifah Othman to abandon her 40-year Umno membership.

"I did my part in explaining to my mother about current issues (such as alleged) misuse of power by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and the cost of living.

"My mother trusted my explanation," he told Malaysiakini in an interview.

Hanifah's decision to switch to Bersatu was further driven by the manner in which Umno treated her son for simply trying to organise a talk for Mahathir in Malacca.

Despite pleading that he only had good intentions, the Umno leadership suspended Rafiq for six years.

“Frankly speaking, besides Najib's weaknesses, the way Umno punished me, she maybe saw that as unfair.

“She expected Umno to have had a fair judgement on my issue. That also convinced her," he said.

Rafiq quit Umno in October 2016, and his mother followed suit two weeks later.

Out of Rafiq's four other siblings, one remains an Umno Youth branch chief, and another an Umno Wanita branch chief.

Despite this, Rafiq said his familial ties were unaffected.

“My siblings (in Umno) are professional, they can accept (our switch to Bersatu),” he said.

However, Rafiq admitted that some Umno leaders have given his family members a hard time.

“Some of the Umno leadership are always asking them, ‘How can your brother say this?’ or whether they support me or not,” he said.

While Rafiq’s family have weathered the changes with relative ease, he did admit some of his friends have given him grief over his new party.

“Some of my friends from Umno, they are angry and no longer want to be friends with me.

“(They) cannot accept it, and they ended our friendship straightaway. I accept that,” he said.

‘No regrets’

However, he is grateful that these friends were in the minority. Most, he said, accepted his decision to switch parties and still respect him.

Being from a long-time Umno family, Rafiq had initially considered appealing his suspension. But in October 2016, he decided to quit Umno, together with more than 30 other Umno members. His mother followed suit two weeks later.

Shortly after, Rafiq – who said he had always idolised Mahathir since he was a young boy growing up in Ujong Pasir, Malacca – joined the former premier’s new party Bersatu.

“When I was a kid, even if I was playing with my friends, if my mother called me and told me Mahathir was on the television, I would leave my friends to go watch him.

“Even if... I could not understand everything he said at that time, but it was enough for me to watch the way he talked and his self-confidence, all of which inspired me,” he said.

Because of this, as soon as he turned 18, Rafiq immediately signed up to be an Umno member.

Little did he know then, over a decade later, his journey in Umno would come to an abrupt end.

Despite the trouble he got into with Umno for inviting Mahathir to a function, Rafiq insisted he has no regrets at all.

“I think my political journey has been preordained by Allah.

“Regret never crossed my mind when I announced I was leaving Umno after I was suspended over what I think, at that time, should not have been an offence.

“To me, this is a blessing and I do not want to cry over what has happened, because, in everything that happens, Allah promises a blessing which we sometimes cannot see,” he said. -Mkini