Utusan bats for Perkasa
By The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 12 — An editorial in today’s Mingguan Malaysia, the Sunday edition of Umno’s Utusan Malaysia newspaper, backs Perkasa which raises questions about whether the daily is still supporting party president Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
“Is it appropriate for all the (Barisan Nasional) component parties including Umno to reject Perkasa?” the newspaper said in the editorial written under its Awang Selamat pseudonym.
In the editorial, the Umno-daily comes out batting for Perkasa and pointedly echoes the views of the Malay rights group in response to Umno’s decision to distance itself from them.
Yesterday Perkasa warned Umno not to be complacent about its vote base, claiming that only three in 10 Umno members were sure to vote for them in the next general elections.
In a thinly veiled threat to Umno, Perkasa chief Datuk Ibrahim Ali also said that he had not ruled out the possibility of giving “guidance” to Perkasa’s 300,000 members – 80 per cent of whom are alleged to be disillusioned Umno members – on how to vote in the next general election.
Ibrahim’s warning came a day after Umno’s top leaders, who have kept silent so far on the topic of Perkasa, cautiously agreed that supporting the controversial group’s views could prove detrimental to BN’s struggle.
Leading the fray was Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, who told The Malaysian Insider that it was “about time” that Umno made a strong stand against Ibrahim and Perkasa.
Nazri, who has been the most vocal of all Umno leaders on the topic of Perkasa, even went a step further to assert that all of Perkasa’s members from Umno and its patron, former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, were political “has-beens”.
Also joining in was Umno secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, who told his BN component party counterparts that Umno will not back Perkasa or Ibrahim in the next general election as such a move will only erode non-Malay support for the ruling coalition.
The stage is now set for a battle of wills in Umno after Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad declared his support yesterday for Perkasa as a crutch for what he said was a weak Umno.
The Malaysian Insider understands that Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Razak has asked senior party leaders to disassociate from the controversial Malay group.
Dr Mahathir is Perkasa’s patron, which is seen as representing the views of Umno’s conservative faction who are against Najib’s proposed economic reforms which they claim will erode Malay control of the economy.
Today’s Utusan Malaysia editorial suggests that the newspaper’s editors are in the Dr Mahathir corner.
“Awang does not agree at all with the view that Perkasa will be detrimental to BN because it is accused of being racist.
“[We should] conduct studies first. Nearly all of the issues voiced out by Perkasa are to challenge the extreme demands by various quarters which did not protect the sensitivity of the Malays and the principles of the constitution. Perkasa has never asked for more for the Malays even though the country’s economy is controlled by the Chinese,” the Awang Selamat column points out.
The editorial also argued that in its push for non-Malay support, Umno and BN could end up losing Malay votes.
