KUALA PILAH: After narrowly winning the March 8 elections, Negri Sembilan Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan yesterday announced a "political recovery plan" for Umno, followed by the state Barisan Nasional.

He said the plan, to be implemented soon, would involve restructuring state Umno programmes so that party activities were more focused.

"Negri Sembilan Umno will carry out the plan first, followed by the BN. We need to have a political recovery plan.

"It's like when we had the economic crisis, we came up with an economic recovery plan. So in politics, we need a recovery plan, too," he said after a function here.

Mohamad, the state Umno liaison committee chairman, said the party would study internal and external factors.
"We must show people that Umno is strong. When Umno is strong, members will be loyal and the people, especially non-members, will vote for us."

Mohamad said traditional ways, such as increasing the number of members, no longer worked and that Umno needed a "re-engineering".

"We must prepare our vehicles and platforms. We cannot let the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) do all the work... we need to meet the NGOs, talk and affiliate with them, as well as mix with associations, professionals, teachers and many others."

Mohamed added that it was also time to trumpet the party's contributions, no matter how small.

"The opposition helps one person and the whole world knows... we have to increase the noise level a bit."

Asked if Umno would create a public service centre like the MCA's Public Complaints Department, Mohamad said the BN helped people through the government. -- Bernama