KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 16 — Umno was conflating PKR vice-president N. Surendran’s disapproval of its execution of pro-Bumiputera affirmative action with criticism of such measures, PKR’s Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad said today.
Nik Nazmi said that Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin’s response to Surendran reflected the party and Barisan Nasional’s (BN) intolerance of criticism.
“First of all, Surendran was not in any way criticising the idea of the need to empower the Bumiputera community, nor was he questioning the various institutions set up to bring this about—including Mara and Tekun,” said Nik Nazmi in a statement today.
“What Surendran was taking issue rather was this Umno-BN government’s terrible approach and record in this regard,” added the deputy Speaker of the Selangor state assembly.
Yesterday, theSun daily reported Surendran as saying that the New Economic Model (NEM) unveiled last week by Putrajaya, which offers the dominant Malay community access to over RM31 billion in aid and contracts, contravened Article 8 of the Federal Constitution that prohibits discrimination.
Umno-owned daily Utusan Malaysia subsequently reported Khairy as saying in response that Surendran’s remarks were “too much”.
“If this is the attitude of PKR leaders, it’s not impossible that if they rule this country, agencies that prioritise the Malays and Bumiputeras will be destroyed for the so-called purpose of racial equality,” the youth and sports minister was quoted as saying.
Nik Nazmi pointed out today, however, that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had said last Saturday, when announcing the NEM, that the programme was “to reward” the Bumiputera community for their support in Election 2013.
“A clear sign of the PM’s ignorance on constitutional government and democracy,” Nik Nazmi noted.
“What Khairy, nor his colleagues in Umno seem to fail to understand, is that it should be possible for all Malaysians to support the need for the economic empowerment of the Bumiputera and yet still be critical about how this government—indeed any government—has gone about it,” added the Seri Setia assemblyman.
Nik Nazmi stressed that Putrajaya’s approach towards empowering the Bumiputera community seems to have “only benefited a well-connected few”.
Shortly after Najib took office in 2009, he had said the NEM would remove the race-based affirmative action introduced in the now-defunct New Economic Policy (NEP) in favour of meritocracy.
Political analysts said that Najib’s recent announcement of the pro-Bumiputera policies signalled a reversal of his earlier promises to reform the economy and to roll back race-based policies.
They also noted that Najib, the Umno president, likely made the move in hopes of bolstering his position ahead of the upcoming party polls.
