Penang Umno liason chief Zainal Abidin Osman has strongly condemned the historical ' Citizens' Declaration ' to topple Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.
The declaration was read out by former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamed at a joint press conference with top opposition leaders and NGO activists in Kuala Lumpur today.
Zainal expressed regret that Mahathir and other Umno leaders including former deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin and former Kedah menteri besar Mukhriz Mahathir were willing to join forces with DAP leader Lim Kit Siang to topple Najib.
"Such actions will not be accepted by any right-thinking Umno member," Zainal ( photo, seated centre ) said in a statement.
"All Umno members must defend the president and country's leader no matter who holds the post," he added.
"When Mahathir was PM and Umno president, that is what we Umno members had done […] we defended him from every internal and external attack," he said.
"Penang Umno is loyal to Najib and will fight the enemies of BN and Umno especially DAP and its cohorts," he added.
Zainal said the state Umno liason committee was utterly disappointed and upset with Mahathir as his action was 'undemocratic'.
"Any effort to topple the government and a democratically-elected PM is not appropriate at all and should be strongly opposed by supporters of Umno and BN," Zainal said.
"Their move is seen as trying to challenge the party to take disciplinary action against them.
"They should not be supportive of any plan, movement, effort or declaration by any quarter to topple the PM who was democratically-elected," he said.
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