page_title: United Malays National Organisation
section_title: UMNO Baru (New UMNO)
hierarchical_section_title: United Malays National Organisation / History / UMNO Baru (New UMNO)
caption_attribution_description: Former Malaysian Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad addressing the General Assembly on September 25, 2003.
context_page_description: The United Malays National Organisation is Malaysia's biggest and main national political party. It is a founding member of the Barisan Nasional coalition which, with its predecessor the Alliance, had been the government of Malaysia and dominated the country's politics from independence to the defeat in the 2018 Malaysian general election in May 2018. Until then, all of Malaysia's Prime Ministers had been members of UMNO, until Mahathir Mohamad became the first prime minister from Pakatan Harapan, and the first prime minister to have tenures with two different parties. Following Mahathir's resignation in 2020, the party subsequently rejoined the government with nine ministerial positions in the Muhyiddin cabinet.
  UMNO's goals are to uphold the aspirations of Malay nationalism and the concept of Ketuanan Melayu, as well as the dignity of race, religion and country. The party also aspires to protect the Malay culture as the national culture and to uphold, defend and expand Islam across Malaysia.
context_section_description: 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. The first challenge was a dull affair in which Hussein Onn was opposed by a minor party official named Sulaiman Palestin. 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 Tun Musa Hitam, who was also the incumbent Deputy President of UMNO seeking re-election, as well as Datuk 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 (NEP) 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 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.
  Allegations were made that several delegates who had voted were drawn from UMNO branches not properly registered. There were also several unproved allegations being bandied about that the balloting process had not been above board.
  Nevertheless, Razaleigh pledged to support Mahathir, provided that a "witch hunt" was not launched. However, Mahathir promptly purged the government cabinet of all Team B members, and launched similar reshuffles in state and local governments.
  On 25 June 1987, an appeal was filed by 12 of the UMNO delegates to have the assembly and the election of April 1987 declared null. After one of the delegates, Hussain bin Manap, withdrew unexpectedly in August from filing the appeal, the remaining litigants have since become famous as the "UMNO 11." Although Razaleigh and Musa Hitam were not among the plaintiffs, it was widely believed that Razaleigh was funding the appeal.
  After a series of interlocutory hearings over the discovery of documents that took more than seven months, the matter finally came before Justice Harun Hashim in the Kuala Lumpur High Court on 4 February 1988. The judge ruled that under the existing law he had no option but to find the party, UMNO, to be an unlawful society due to the existence of several unregistered branches—an illegal act under the Societies Act of 1966. The question of the Assembly itself being illegal therefore became academic.
  "'It is a very hard decision to declare UMNO unlawful,' said Justice Datuk Harun Hashim in his February 4 judgement. 'But the law was made by our Parliament and certainly UMNO was aware [of the Societies Act] because they were in the majority [in Parliament] at all times [when the law was made].' Under th
caption: Mahathir Mohamad
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