KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 2 — An extraordinary general meeting (EGM) will be held soon to dissolve Kita, said its president Datuk Zaid Ibrahim today.

Zaid said that the decision was made following reports of Kita members in Kedah and Penang openly attacking Pakatan Rakyat, “making it clear that they are not interested in real issues and merely want to embarrass and ridicule the opposition.”

This, he said, was not part of the party’s objectives.

“I realise not that forming Kita was a mistake. I had hoped to provide alternative ideas in politics and to bring a wider diversity of talent to the opposition’s leadership.

“This has not happened,” said the former Umno law minister, who charged that he had failed in building Kita to become a “moderate and progressive” political party.

“There are enough people out there who are just interested in criticising my leadership of Kita, and who manufacture stories to ridicule me,” added Zaid (picture).

Another reason leading to Kita being dissolved, according to him, was his inability to raise sufficient funds to manage the party’s activities.

Zaid, a former Umno lawmaker, joined PKR in June 2009. He left Umno in protest over the arrests of the DAP’s Teresa Kok, blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin and journalist Tan Hoon Cheng under the Internal Security Act (ISA) in 2008.

Zaid was once in the running for PKR’s deputy presidency against Azmin Ali and Mustapha Kamil Ayub before he pulled out and quit the party last year.

Zaid had alleged gross abuse in PKR’s election process, which eventually led him to form Kita.

But the two-year-old party had been fraught with internal bickering and challenges against Zaid’s leadership by other Kita members, who have disagreed with his pro-opposition stand.

Zaid recently announced that Kita will not be contesting in the coming polls and promised to offer its “unconditional support” to the federal opposition.