Dr M: Malay parties now beggars to DAP Chinese
(Malay Mail Online) – Malay political parties vying for support among the country’s dominant race have stripped the community of power and turned themselves into “beggars” to the Chinese, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad claimed today.
The former prime minister said the contest among the Malay-based parties meant the Malay vote was split into three, forcing these to woo non-Malay support in order to secure the numbers necessary to rule and consequently placing real power in the hands of the latter communities.
“Umno, PAS and Keadilan (PKR) are all begging the DAP Chinese to get support for general elections, to win.
“And when we are the pengemis (beggars), we are not the powerful ones anymore,” he said in his keynote address at the Nusantara Youth Convention here today.
Dr Mahathir said that while it was the Malays who introduced the concept of power sharing among various races, the community is now allegedly the weakest.
The nation’s longest-serving prime minister added despite losing power, the Malay community were also “not smart” even though they remain the largest section of the population,
“Because even within the 60 per cent that wins the elections, there is divisiveness among us,” he said adding that the Malay vote was now divided among the Umno, PAS, and PKR.
Dr Mahathir also alleged that these purported divisions within the Malay community was why its economic performance continues to lag behind the country’s other races.
He further cautioned that the country’s aim to become a developed nation by 2020 would bring little benefit to the Malay community due to their weakness and disunity.
Dr Mahathir then advised the Malays to adopt the values of the other ethnic communities in order to find success, pointing out that their progress did not come because of “skin colour, climate, where they live or their country’s wealth of resources”.
“If your values are good, then you will succeed, if not, even if we are rich in resources, we won’t become developed,” he said.
Acknowledging that his criticism of the Malay community would attract backlash, Dr Mahathir said it was necessary in order for the community to improve.
“But if we don’t identify our own weaknesses, we will be disillusioned and will not address these flaws,” he said.
Malay unity is a recurring theme in Umno’s overtures to PAS, in which the former moots co-operation between the two rivals ostensibly for the interests of the Malay-Muslim community.
