KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 23 ― Umno’s rejection of Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese in the last general polls was the reason for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to go out on a limb in a bid to win non-Muslim support, former New Straits Times (NST) chief editor Datuk Abdul Kadir Jasin claimed.

Responding to a recent remark by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Kadir added that the rejection has put Najib “at odds” with his own party, for which the latter was “resoundingly” and “unequivocally” snubbed despite various attempts to reach out to “the Chinese with gifts of money and entertainment”.

“All his strategies in this direction had not produced results,” the former newsman wrote on his blog yesterday, referring to Najib who is also Umno president and chairman of the 13-party Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.

“He is portraying himself as being desperate for non-Malay support, especially Chinese, at the expense of the Malays,” said Kadir, noting that Najib later blamed the BN’s dismal electoral performance on a “Chinese tsunami”.

Last week, Dr Mahathir claimed that Umno, PAS and PKR have split the Malay vote three ways and turned the political parties into “beggars” to the Chinese.

The man who served as prime minister for 22 years until October 2003 alleged that the Malays are now the weakest ethnic group in the country, despite being responsible for introducing the power-sharing concept among Malaysia’s various races.

Kadir said that though they were dominant in numbers, Malays “are neither here nor there”.

“The three-way split has forced all the Malay-based parties to appeal (beg) to the Chinese to stay in power or to take over power,” he said.

“If it continues to lose non-Malay support and the younger Malays continue to lean towards the PR, the BN could find itself on the opposite side of the House in the coming GE,” he cautioned.

Partly in agreement with Dr Mahathir’s critics, Kadir pointed out that “the begging”, if it exist, is less obvious in the PR bloc as there is no dominant party in the federal opposition coalition; adding that PKR, DAP and PAS are of equal strength.

He also argued that the Malays are not only losing out politically but are still struggling to gain economic clout.

Kadir said despite the best efforts of the now-defunct New Economic Policy (NEP) and other similar race-preferential policies, the Malays are still lagging behind the non-Malays, particularly the ethnic Chinese and Indians.

“Maybe the Malays are not begging the Chinese as clearly in the economic sphere as they are in politics but we cannot also deny the intricate interdependence between the Chinese and the Malays in the economy,” he said.

He added that the only way the Malays are going to become economically strong is if Najib ensures that the Bumiputera economy is firmly integrated into the national economy, insisting that it is not sustainable if it continues to be detached from the overall economy. 

“I hope, in between the urge to globe-trot and fiery speeches, the prime minister stays home and does the needful for the sake of the country and the people. The outlook for the coming year is frighteningly bleak,” he said.