Not only Mersing, but other seats too need to return to UMNO - Nazri Aziz

He stressed that the matter did not need to be discussed and negotiated anymore because the seats belonged to UMNO but changed as a result of the actions of the MP who won the seat but chose to jump to another party.

He argued that UMNO did not lose the parliamentary seat and all party members wanted it to be contested again using the Barisan Nasional (BN) logo.

"If we want the Mersing seat back, it is similar to the other seats where UMNO contested and won but its members jumped the party, not migrated but jumped the party probably because there was no mental strength.

"But jumping to another party is not a justification for wanting to contest in an UMNO-owned seat. If you want to contest, look for another place, go contest in Bukit Bintang or any other place," he told Astro AWANI.

The issue of UMNO-owned seats arose after the party's president, Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi firmly stated that the Mersing Parliamentary seat belonged to UMNO.

Ahmad Zahid said this after Mersing MP, Datuk Dr Abdul Latiff Ahmad who is also the Minister of Rural Development labelled UMNO as no longer accepted in Sabah.

Apart from Ahmad Zahid, several other UMNO leaders including Youth Chief Datuk Dr Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki also criticized Abdul Latiff's statement that was made in a forum.

Abdul Latiff then apologized and explained that it had been taken out of context.