I refer to the article 'Down the road... again' by Dr Farish A Noor (May 25). I wish to add certain facts which may help your readers to fully evaluate the content of the said article.

The offer to join Umno is only open to Chinese Malaysians who were formerly members of the now dissolved Parti Angkatan Keadilan Rakyat (Akar). It is not open to all Chinese Malaysians in Sabah.

A large number of the Chinese Malaysians in Akar are actually Sino-Kadazan (One of their parent is a bumiputra). The offer was made by Umno to reciprocate the decision of Akar to dissolve itself and advising all its members to join Umno en bloc. However, not all accepted the offer. Most of them opted to join three other Chinese-based parties in Sabah i.e. SAPP (Sabah Progressive Party), LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) and MCA.

Contrary to the writer's claims, Umno, too, does have substantial number of non-Muslim members. Sabah Umno has one non-Muslim state assembly representative and one non-Muslim member of Parliament.