If Najib’s BR1M is vote-buying, what was Mahathir’s NEP?
(FMT) – Salleh Said Keruak says Mahathir Mohamad extended the NEP for a further 25 years because he feared Umno would lose power without it.
While Dr Mahathir Mohamad has relentlessly criticised Prime Minister Najib Razak for buying the people’s good favour with the cash handouts of BR1M, Salleh Said Keruak says the former prime minister did the same during his tenure through the use of the NEP that favoured the Malays.
“If the NEP had ended in 1990 as planned then there would have been a strong possibility that Umno would have lost power and the opposition, which included Semangat 46 at that time, may have taken over,” he explained in his blog, adding that Mahathir refused to end the NEP and instead extended it for another 25 years.
“While some call it an affirmative action plan others call it vote buying,” the Sabah State Speaker said.
He also said Mahathir’s continued attacks on Najib’s leadership and policies was having a negative effect on Umno although his intention of the PM’s ouster was supposedly to save the Malay party.
“I worry that Dr Mahathir in his obsession to bring down the Prime Minister no longer cares whether in the same process he brings down Umno,” Salleh said, explaining that many of Mahathir’s comments recently have not been “complementary” to Umno.
“Dr Mahathir actually paints a very negative picture of Umno although he makes it appear like he is attacking the Prime Minister and not Umno.”
