[8] UMNO is a founding and the principal dominant member of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, which taken along with its predecessor Alliance, had been the main governing party of Malaysia from the independence of Malaya in 1957 until its defeat in the 2018 general election.

A race-focused party, UMNO's goals are to uphold the aspirations of Malay nationalism, the racial concept of Ketuanan Melayu (lit.

According to at least one official school textbook published during UMNO's time in government, the party fought for other races once they were at the helm of the country.

[14] In 1951, Onn Jaafar left UMNO after failing to open its membership to non-Malay Malayans to form the Independence of Malaya Party.

Elections for the council were held in 1955, and the Alliance, which had now expanded to include the Malayan Indian Congress, issued a manifesto stating its goals of achieving independence by 1959, requiring a minimum of primary school education for all children, protecting the rights of the Malay rulers as constitutional monarchs, ending the Communist emergency, and reforming the civil service through the hiring of more Malayans as opposed to foreigners.

The Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA), the armed wing of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), committed sabotage campaigns against the British by disrupting transportation and communication networks, attacking police stations, burning down factories, with the goal of gaining independence for Malaya by making British rule in Malaya too expensive to maintain.

Although the Tunku and the Malay rulers had asked the Reid Commission to ensure that "in an independent Malaya all nationals should be accorded equal rights, privileges and opportunities and there must not be discrimination on grounds of race and creed," the Malay privileges, which many in UMNO backed, were cited as necessary by the Reid Commission as a form of affirmative action that would eventually be phased out.

In Malaya's first general elections in 1959, the Alliance coalition led by UMNO won 51.8% of the votes and captured 74 out of 104 seats, enough for a two-thirds majority in parliament, which would not only allow them to form the government again but amend the constitution at will.

However, for the Alliance, the election was marred by internal strife when MCA leader Lim Chong Eu demanded his party be allowed to contest 40 of the 104 seats available.

Finance Minister Tan Siew Sin of the MCA labelled Lee as the "greatest, disruptive force in the entire history of Malaysia and Malaya."

"[30][31] On that day, Lee Kuan Yew announced that Singapore was a sovereign independent nation and assumed the role of prime minister.

When polling closed on the mainland peninsula (West Malaysia) on 10 May, it emerged the Alliance had won less than half of the popular vote, although it was assured of 66 out of 104 Parliamentary seats available.

[clarification needed] However, the Alliance was dealt an even larger blow on the state level, losing control of Kelantan, Perak, and Penang.

Parliament was suspended, with a National Operations Council (NOC) led by Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Razak Hussein of UMNO, taking over the government.

On 31 August that year, the Tunku announced the national ideology of Rukun Negara and his planned retirement as Prime Minister in favour of Abdul Razak.

Quotas in education and the civil service that the Constitution had explicitly provided for were expanded by the NEP, which also mandated government interference in the private sector.

[39] There had been much internal conflict in the National Front regarding the election; in 1973, Lim Keng Yaik and several supporters of his aggressive pro-Chinese stance left the MCA for Gerakan.

After stories that children of rubber tappers had died after consuming poisonous wild yam due to poverty, university students reacted by staging the 1974 Baling demonstrations.

SNAP had campaigned against BN on a platform of opposing Chief Minister Abdul Rahman Ya'kub's pro-Malay policies, charging them with alienating the rural indigenous natives of Sarawak, such as the Ibans.

The USNO Chief Minister, Mustapha Harun, was also known for favouring political patronage as a means of allocating valuable timber contracts, and living an extravagant lifestyle, being ferried to his A$1 million Queensland home by jets provided with Sabahan public funds.

After one of the delegates, Hussain bin Manap, withdrew unexpectedly in August from filing the appeal, the remaining litigants have since become famous as the "UMNO 11."

[49] After a series of interlocutory hearings over the discovery of documents that took more than seven months, the matter finally came before Justice Harun Hashim in the Kuala Lumpur High Court on 4 February 1988.

Under the 1966 Act, amended five times over the years, and most recently by Mahathir's government, each of the society's branches has to register separately with the Registrar...."[51] Then, Razaleigh set up a new party called Semangat 46, which claimed to be the successor to the old UMNO.

After Mahathir stepped down as President of UMNO in 2003, he was replaced by his designated successor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who became the 5th Prime Minister of Malaysia.

[66] In February 2020, in the leadup to the 2020–2022 Malaysian political crisis, UMNO leaders Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Ismail Sabri Yaakob, along with BERSATU President Muhyiddin Yassin, PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang and PKR defector members led by Mohamed Azmin Ali, collectively convened at the Sheraton Petaling Jaya hotel to initiate a change in government, thus causing political instability by depriving the elected Pakatan Harapan government of a majority within the Members of the Dewan Rakyat in the 14th Malaysian Parliament.

In July 2021, further political instability ensued when UMNO, at the direction of its President Ahmad Zahid, withdrew support for the government led by Muhyiddin along with his cabinet.

[72][73][74] In August 2021, after the Yang di-Pertuan Agong required all members of the Dewan Rakyat to submit a statutory declaration (SD) indicating their preference of Prime Minister,.

[81] UMNO overtly represents the Malays of Malaysia, although any Bumiputera (indigenous Malaysian, a category which includes people such as the non-Malay and usually non-Muslim Kadazan, Iban, Dayak, etc.

[82] In 2018, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad announced the cabinet's decision for the government to "ratify all remaining core UN instruments related to the protection of human rights", including International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and other five previously unratified conventions at a United Nations General Assembly, UMNO, PAS along with various non-governmental organisations, staged an anti-ICERD rally that was held at the Dataran Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur, to protest against the ratifications of the relevant international conventions, due to their perception that these human rights instruments contravene with the special position of the Malays, Bumiputera and Islam within the country; all of which are enshrined within the Malaysian Constitution.

[83][84][85] On 23 November 2018, the Prime Minister's Office announced they would not ratify the convention and would continue defending the Federal Constitution, which they said represents a social contract that was agreed upon by all races during the formation of the country.