Perkasa’s New Direction?

By admin-s Last updated Nov 25, 2014

Joshua Wu

Perkasa seems to be getting more and more dissatisfied with UMNO’s performance in defending malay rights. A coalition of Malay rights groups (including Perkasa) plans to submit a memorandum to the Government, touching on issues like the abolition of vernacular schools and the limitation of PTPTN loan exemptions to only bumiputeras.

As of 2013, Perkasa claims to have a membership of around 500,000 (an impressive feat considering it has only been around since 2008). If the numbers prove to be true, perhaps instead of supplementing UMNO, Perkasa should become a political party and give UMNO a run for their money.

I know many of us would balk at the idea of seeing a Perkasa candidate on our ballot paper. However, a hallmark of a democratic society is the presence of competitive and unique political parties (ethnic supremacist groups included)

Case in point, the United Kingdom. The UK has the British National Party (BNP), which is their very own version of Perkasa. The reason I liken BNP to Perkasa is because amongst other things, the former advocates white nasionalism.

In regards to legal immigrants settled in UK, the BNP “recognises the right of legally settled and law-abiding minorities to remain in the UK and enjoy the full protection of the law, on the understanding that the indigenous population of Britain has the right to remain the majority population of our nation”.

It offers however voluntary repatriation where “generous grants to those of foreign descent resident here who wish to leave permanently”

It is important to note that BNP has no representative in the House of Commons or the European Parliament. This could possibly mean that the people of UK generally do not subscribe to BNP’s principles.

Only by running for elections will Perkasa know if the people truly supports its ideologies. Perhaps Perkasa could outdo UMNO as its far-right stance may appeal to certain segments of society more than UMNO’s new centrist direction under the command of Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.