Nazri herds Perkasa towards political endgame

ARCHIVES 2010

By admin-s On Sep 15, 2010

(TMI) Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz has challenged Malay rights group Perkasa to prove its worth by registering itself as a formal party — and to challenge Umno in the political arena.

Otherwise, he said, the non-governmental organisation should just stop claiming that it had a large support base.

“I would like to suggest that Perkasa register as a political party… only then we can really see whether they are as strong or as influential as they claim to be,” he told The Malaysian Insider yesterday.

The Umno supreme council member predicted that if Perkasa switched from being an NGO to becoming a full-fledged political party, it would fail to attract many of his own partymen

At present, Perkasa has claimed a membership base of about 300,000, with Umno members making up for at least 60 per cent of that.

“Now, they are an NGO so some Umno members can join them because they are not political… but I want to see them register and then I want to see how many Umno members will join them.

“As claimed by (former prime minister) Tun Dr Mahathir (Mohamad), they are very popular,” he challenged.

Nazri said that by registering as a political party, Perkasa could then stand up and meet Umno on a level playing field in the next general election.

“I really, really hope they do. Come fight us in the political arena. See how much support they have… how many seats will they win?

“Otherwise, I think they are just nonsense,” he said.