KUALA LUMPUR: UMNO has decided to contest under the Barisan Nasional (BN) banner in the 15th General Election (GE15), and the party needs to start organising measures and mobilising efforts to strengthen the pact.

UMNO Supreme Council (MT) member, Datuk Seri Razali Ibrahim, said that should be the main focus at this time, and not about who should hold office.

"Today we have decided that BN will be used as a 'coalition' to face the GE but work to strengthen it needs to be done.

“We have to make sure MCA understands what we want to do.

"We also need to make MIC understand because the situation is not the same as before when UMNO is more dominant in the coalition. Today it is about 'mutual respect' and joint action," he said.

Razali added that issues in UMNO also need to be resolved first and cannot be taken lightly and expect MCA and MIC as well as other component parties to understand UMNO on their own.

Therefore, he said, all movements and offers to the people towards the next GE must be from the collective voice of the component parties under BN and not the will of UMNO alone.

At the same time, he said, UMNO also said needs to see whether there was still room to continue in the Muafakat Nasional with PAS, as PAS has not yet decided whether to continue to work with UMNO or to be with Perikatan Nasional.

Razali said until everything is neatly arranged and ready to go to the battlefield, then it is appropriate to raise the question of who will represent BN to be named as the new prime ministerial candidate.

“I just want to tell you, in the current period, there are already several models on the question of who is the prime ministerial candidate from BN that has been raised.

"The Supreme Working Council has not had time to discuss this but there are already these ideas," he said.