Can Umno steer BN in the right direction?

By admin-s On Dec 5, 2014

Any ruling parties that refused to admit their weaknesses after decades of being in power do not deserve to continue to be in power.

Khoo Kay Peng, The Ant Daily

Umno is making a big mistake if it caves in to the demands of Perkasa, a coalition of Malay rights groups.

In the run up to the party’s recent annual general assembly, Perkasa leaders were busy drawing up memorandums calling for the abolition of vernacular schools (especially Chinese vernacular schools), allowing only Bumiputeras to be exempted from repaying their National Higher Education Fund (PTPTN) loan schemes and others.

Once again, the group has chosen to target the Chinese community to bolster its credentials as an ethnic champion. What’s worse is that some Umno leaders are echoing some of the same demands leading up to their party’s annual general assembly last week.

Instead of supporting the president’s efforts to promote liberalisation, Wanita Umno has submitted a memorandum calling for the Sedition Act not to be repealed. Resolutions have been submitted to discuss a broad range of issues including the status of vernacular schools and suggestions to strip off the citizenship of non-Malays who are not fluent in the Malay language.

The party leadership should take notice that international observers are going to follow the proceedings very closely. Umno is the most dominant ruling party in the country and the resolutions passed in the party’s annual general assembly are going to have a major impact on how the country is going to be run.

Of course, Umno delegates have the right to freedom of expression.

However, the party must be reminded of its obligations as a ruling party and the consequences of its speech especially those that are racially charged and sensitive. Instead of blaming the Chinese for the BN coalition electoral setback, the party should conduct a self-evaluation on what the party has done wrong in order to improve its electoral performance.

Any ruling parties that refused to admit their weaknesses after decades of being in power do not deserve to continue to be in power. Making the Chinese community as its main political punching bag is not going to prove that the community is the main cause of the Malays’ dilemmas and grievances.

If the attacks persist, it is going to show that Umno, as the most dominant Malay-based ruling party over the last five decades, has failed to deliver as the leader of the BN-led federal government. It controls the administration and its resources. It has been able to implement any affirmative policies that benefited the Malays without any resistance from its partners in BN.

Who is to be blamed if the Malays failed to improve their socio-economic standards and conditions? Should the Chinese undergraduates be penalised just because not enough Malay graduates qualified for exemption from repaying their PTPTN loan?