Abdul Latiff Ahmad


Abd Latiff bin Ahmad is a Malaysian politician and is the incumbent Member of Parliament of Malaysia for the Mersing constituency in the state of Johor for fifth term since 1999. He was a member of the United Malays National Organisation ; a component party of Barisan Nasional coalition. He resigned from UMNO to be an Independent politician in 2018. Presently he is a member of the Malaysian United Indigenous Party or Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia, a component of Perikatan Nasional coalition since 2020.

Political career

Abd Latiff was firstly elected to the Johor State Legislative Assembly for Endau seat in 1995 election. In the 1999 general election he switched to federal politics by contesting and winning to be the MP of Mersing constituency in Johor, and thereafter served as Deputy Minister of Human Resources, Deputy Minister of Health and Deputy Minister of Defence. He was reelected MP for the Mersing parliamentary seat in the consecutive 2004, 2008, 2013 and 2018 general elections.
Abd Latiff was dropped from Najib Razak's cabinet after the 2013 general election, and was appointed as the chairman of the government-linked housing development company Syarikat Perumahan Negara Berhad. He left SPNB in early 2019 after BN lost as the ruling federal government to Pakatan Harapan in the 2018 election.

Controversies and issues

Insulting UMNO

On 8 July 2020, he said UMNO was an unscrupulous party in Sabah after its leaders jumped to Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia. Earlier, a video featuring Abdul Latif's statement in an open forum on the matter was spread on social media where he mentioned "Sabahans do not mention jumping but call migration and usually from Berjaya to PBS, PBS goes to UMNO. Meanwhile, Abdul Latiff's statement met with opposition from UMNO leaders who are now urging him to resign. After receiving word of mouth from UMNO leaders, finally he admitted his mistake. While reminding UMNO, the real enemy is the opponents and they should not quarrel with each other, he said he apologized if the statement regarding "UMNO does not work in Sabah" was misunderstood and hurt the hearts of many parties.

Election results

Honours

Honours of Malaysia