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KUALA LUMPUR – “Slay, flex, bring W to Umno, For Real" - these may not be the usual words heard from a political leader at an Umno General Assembly, but Umno president Datuk Ser Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was making a serious point - the party needs to understand how young Malaysians speak if it wants to win them over.
Zahid dropped a string of Gen Z slang during his opening speech, using terms such as “slay”, “flex”, “W” and “for real” to drive home the need for Umno to get closer to younger voters.
But he admitted the party itself may not fully understand them yet.
“Do we truly understand these young people?” he asked, he directed it specifically to the deputy president, Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan. “We don’t understand. I don’t think we can speak like them.”
That, Zahid said, was why the party’s Youth and Puteri wings must get closer to younger Malaysians and understand their language, interests and way of communicating.
“This is their language. To Youth and Puteri - Dr Akmal and Along, get closer to them,” he said during his presidential policy speech.
The Umno Youth Chief is Datuk Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh and Puteri Chief Datuk Nurul Amal Mohd Fauzi, fondly known as Along.
His message was simple that if Umno wants younger voters to come to the party, the party must first go to them.
“God willing, they will come to us,” he said.
In his speech, Zahid has warned that political loyalty can no longer be assumed to pass from one generation to the next, particularly as younger Malaysians become less attached to the political loyalties and nostalgia that shaped previous generations.
“Politics today is far more dynamic. Loyalty is no longer inherited. The new generation is not bound by the political nostalgia of the past,” he said.
He said Umno can no longer assume that younger voters will support the party simply because their parents or grandparents did.
Instead, Zahid said the party must understand what younger Malaysians want and find ways to communicate with them on their own terms.
He pointed to Gen Z and Gen Alpha as generations whose ideas and aspirations must be taken seriously when political leaders think about the country’s future.
Zahid said leaders should be asking what kind of country they wanted to leave behind for these generations, rather than focusing only on who could win the next election.
“This is how leaders think, what kind of country do we want to leave behind? It is not about who can win,” he said.