Give Umno new leadership a chance - Ismail Sabri

KUALA LUMPUR - Umno members need to give the new leadership a chance, especially the three recently elected vice presidents, to plan the party's direction.

Former Umno vice president Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said it is unfair to judge the newly elected Umno leadership so soon.

"We have to give them a chance and time. I can't give a positive or negative comment considering they have just taken up their position as informed (during the Supreme Council meeting).

"So we have to give space to this new leadership to make plans and so on," he told the media when visiting the orphans at Rumah Amal Asnaf Al-Barakh, Keramat AU3, and Taman Zoo View, here, today.

Ismail did not defend his vice president post in the March 18 election.

The vice-president posts are now held by Datuk Seri Wan Rosdy Wan Ismail, Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, and Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani.

He said he will focus more on giving out aid and doing charity work for the orphans and asnaf groups, as well as continuing to strengthen the Malay language, which has been his struggle for so long.

"I will rest first. I will be active again after Raya. For now, maybe I will be with the NGOs and the orphans and asnaf group. I will be focusing on charity work and being active again in my NGO work to internationalise the Malay language, where I had even organised a symposium," he said.

When commenting on the letter issued by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Tan Sri Azam Baki to Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat about the code of ethics violation involving Judge Datuk Mohd Nazlan Ghazali, he said he didn't know about it.

"I don't even know about the letter and what it is about; I only read about it in the media," he said.

The media recently reported that a copy of a letter allegedly from MACC chief commissioner Tan Sri Azam Baki to Tengku Maimun had gone viral on social media.

The letter went viral a few days after the Federal Court rejected former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's appeal to review the conviction and sentences imposed on the former Umno president.