Perkasa to go ahead with ‘1Bumiputera’ movement

Perkasa president Datuk Ibrahim Ali kisses the kris at
the movement’s inaugural congress that was opened by
Dr Mahathir at the PWTC in KL on March 27, 2010

Perkasa will still go ahead with its plans to form a movement to unite all Malay parties under the “1Bumiputera” banner despite the group’s patron Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad describing the idea as disastrous for the country.

The Malay rights group maintained that the community was in dire need of such a movement to defend their political rights, blaming the DAP for uniting the economically-strong Chinese minority to gain ultimate political power.

“We are calling it 1Bumiputera because we want to unite all Bumis. We will launch this to unite the Bumiputeras to defend our political rights.

We have no problems about ethnic Bumi ethnic groups having differing political ideologies but there has to be a collective consciousness in the interest of Bumiputeras.

“Perkasa hopes the spirit of 1Bumiputera reverberates in the souls of all Bumis including those in Sabah and Sarawak. What is wrong with that?” Perkasa secretary-general Syed Hassan Syed Ali told The Malaysian Insider.

He said that Perkasa would still go ahead and launch the movement in Kedah on April 30 during its 3rd “Perhimpunan Melayu”, but will only do so once Dr Mahathir, the guest of honour on that day, leaves the ceremony.

The former prime minister had for the first time disagreed with Perkasa, and warned that such a movement would eventually result in a two-party system where each side would be dominated by one race.

Even Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak distanced his administration from the movement, saying that the movement was a personal opinion of Umno-owned daily Utusan Malaysia.

Utusan had first suggested the movement and had called on Umno to spearhead a 1 Melayu, 1 Bumi movement involving all Malay parties.

“Perkasa will still launch the 1Bumiputera movement in Kedah this April 30 as soon as Tun Dr Mahathir leaves the ceremony because we respect his views. He will be given the freedom to say anything he wants to say in his speech at the Perhimpunan Melayu Perkasa Kedah. We believe what he will say is for the harmony of the citizens of this country,” said Syed Hassan.

The Perkasa leader said they understood and respected the fact that the former PM did not agree with them, and likened the situation to Dr Mahathir disagreeing with Najib’s 1 Malaysia concept.

According to Syed Hassan, while Perkasa was aware that Malays needed to “share everything” with the other races, the non-Bumiputeras are now “refusing to share power” with the Bumiputeras.

“They want to control the economy and pressure the government to destroy the rights of the Bumiputeras. We have heard their demands many times.

“They do not respect the constitution,” he said.

He said the reason why Perkasa could not accept PR as the ruling coalition was because of the DAP, which, he stressed, would not help a form a fair administration.

“Perkasa feels secure with BN because over there is DAP... DAP is a party which propagates equality and we cannot accept DAP’s brand of equality.

“If we are talking about equality based on the race ratio we can accept, because that means 67 per cent of the country’s population are Bumis and therefore we need to control 67 per cent of the country’s economy. But if we have not even achieved 30 per cent and they are talking about getting rid of our constitutional rights how can we accept? This means they have no intention of sharing,” added Syed Hassan.

He said however that this did not mean that Perkasa rejected the 1 Malaysia concept which is a cornerstone of the Najib administration.

By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal