KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 14 — Umno’s Utusan Malaysia continued its campaign backing Perkasa today, and appears to throw its weight behind Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad by citing the former leader’s arguments for the Malay rights group.
In what appears an attempt to show detractors that the Malay rights group has widespread public support, the Malay daily carried opinions, features and stories directly backing Dr Mahathir and Perkasa.
Dr Mahathir recently said that Umno risks losing the next general elections — if it snubbed Perkasa as the party is according to him, weak.
Perkasa leaders have joined that chorus and warned Umno that it could lose the backing from a majority of Malays if it continues plans to distance itself.
Utusan’s support for Perkasa in an editorial on Sunday had already raised questions about whether it was still backing party president Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
But today’s edition of the conservative Umno newspaper contained even more strident views in support of Perkasa and Dr Mahathir.
A prominent feature in the daily’s Op-Ed section lamented how Malays could no longer speak of their rights anymore or else they would be classed as racist.
The opinion piece also argued against using Perkasa as a scapegoat for the inability of Barisan Nasional (BN) in getting non-Malay votes.
But much of the arguments put forward appeared to echo the views of Perkasa leaders as well as that of Dr Mahathir.
The Najib administration continues to struggle in its bid to sell its economic reforms to a sceptical public, and this process continues to be made complicated by political curve balls thrown by Perkasa and Dr Mahathir which are being articulated in Utusan.
Since last week, leaders aligned to Najib had begun the process of distancing the party from Perkasa because of the group’s controversial and strident views on economic reforms.
Using the Malay rights platform, Perkasa has been a major obstacle in the way of Najib’s economic reforms which he has assured would not be at the expense of Bumiputeras.
But Perkasa, backed by Dr Mahathir, is against any attempt to roll back the quotas associated with Malaysia’s affirmative action policies.
Last Saturday, Najib spoke on regional satellite station CNBC arguing that “if we don’t make change, we don’t make reforms, Malaysia will slide backwards.”
But the noise surrounding Malay special rights and Perkasa’s role in fighting for the Malays is beginning to drown out Najib’s reforms.
Today, Utusan Malaysia published a series of quotes from ordinary Malays backing Perkasa.
The 16 quotes accompanied by photographs of those interviewed were given prominent play and appeared under the headline “Majority of Malays support Perkasa.”
There were also a number of other stories attacking the senior Umno leaders who had criticised Perkasa.
Many of those interviewed backed Dr Mahathir.
Leading the fray against Perkasa has been Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, who told The Malaysian Insider that it was “about time” that Umno made a strong stand against Ibrahim and Perkasa.
Nazri, who has been the most vocal of all Umno leaders on the topic of Perkasa, even went a step further to assert that all of Perkasa’s members from Umno and its patron, former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, were political “has-beens”.
Also joining in was Umno secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, who told his BN component party counterparts that Umno will not back Perkasa or Ibrahim in the next general election as such a move will only erode non-Malay support for the ruling coalition.
In this battle of wills in Umno, Utusan Malaysia appears to be firmly in Dr Mahathir’s side.
During badawi’s time we hv dr mamak vs sleepy head. But by and large umno was behind sleepy head or at least not openly against him. And the press too.
Now, we hv jibby jib vs dr mamak in one ring, utusan vs jibby jib in another ring, perkasa vs jibby jib in a third ring, tag team dr mamak + utusan vs tag team jibby jib + parts of umno in a fourth ring and finally one part of umno vs another part of umno and a fifth ring.
Wot a nice mess.
And the corruption exposures by raja petra are surely throwing some intense heat to the fight from the ringside.
Whoooa!
looks like jib guy is not in control of utusan. must be the umnonite warlords. jib, if you can’t control from within, how are you going to control the country?
the people who are against your goals are not the opposition but your own people. so…what’s your plan?
Perkasa has 300,000 members so they claim. If they do not support UMNO, BN, PAS or PKR, who they will they vote for?
If they field their own candidates, it is very unlikely that any one of them can win a seat, not even Khun Iblaheemallee.
So why don’t we just ignore them and let them chase themselves?
Is Mahathir and PERKOSA forming a new party? What would be the new party’s name? Any suggestion?
Datuk Wong Chun Wai had argued that media organizations should not give space and air time to extremists. What has the good Datuk got to say when the media organization is the extremist party themselves? Utusan, with its blatantly racist editorials time and again and its open support of racist Perkasa and racially biased comments of TDM has deliberately provoked racial sentiments. Surely these are done with the tacit support of their political masters.
This is good cop, bad cop wayang kuilt. Just to prompt the Chinese into supporting the good cop against the bad cop.
They usually employ this method when election is near.
If perkasa was really serious it would field its own candidate at every seat vs UMNO.
UM keeps printing seditious articles with impunity. Where is Hishamuddin the Home Minister. Has he lost his b*lls?
Perkasa wants to be with the winning party and to work from within for their own members’ benefit. PAS made a mistake in allowing Ibrahim Ali to stand on its platform, and it will be stupid to make the same mistake again. PKR does not want Perkasa. Thus Perkasa will support no other party than UMNO. Mamakthir was either stupid or trying to fool Najib into believing that he might lose 200 Perkasa votes and thus the general election for not embracing perkasa. To Mamakthir the end justifies the means. That is why he was proud to pursue racial opportunist line, as he who succeeds does not have to justify his success.
Najib would lose the next election not because of Perkasa but because of the sin UMNO has created over the past decades which are now public knowledge. Perkasa members numbered only 8% of UMNO members, and these are the persons who have tasted the vulgarity of NEP. They want the same easy way of lives to continue thinking that there will again be new oil resources awaiting Petronas. The oil resources could be a curse since it made UMNOputras believe that wealth awaits those who play racial politics.
Brunei has higher per capital oil resources than Malaysia. While Brunei does not play democratic process to allow their people one man one vote the Sultan ensures that the people enjoy easier lives in general rather than having a segment of the people steal from the state in the name of democracy. It was lucky for Brunei that it withdrew from being a member of Malaysia. Else, they would not be better off than Sabah now.
Khairy Jamaluddin said that Malaysia has still not reached the failed state and would be a failed state if it followed Singapore government of clean and efficient government. He might be right if Malaysia now follows Singapore government in zero tolerance to corruption. This might be explained by the fact that corruption is a way of life in government services and that in protest to zero corruption, the powers-that-be in the various government institutions could chose to stop work, and hence the state fails. We heard as much when AAB tried to implement IPCMC based on the recommendations of the Royal commission. Thus Malaysia survives on institutionalized corruption. Yes we need Oxford graduate to tell us what he experienced during his father-in-law’s watch.
Had Singapore remained in Malaysia there would not be institutionalized corruption in the government. Malaysia would not have made its institutions serving the governing political party and there would be democracy at work. True democracy does not produce failed states.
Poor Najib is only allowed to talk the walk which is meaningless because he has to wait for taiko mamak to give the nod when he wants to walk the talk. He has made himself a Firaun in 1974 and is still recognised by a handful of Malay racists.
Now we know why Mahathir was so keen to privatize all govt. agencies and institutions when he was the primier.Look at MAS. It has first to be privatize before it can be pirate-tised.
WHAT A 53 YRS OF FAILED NATION-MALAYSIA TODAY EVEN LAGS BEHIND MANY 3RD WORLD NATIONS VEITNAM,CAMBODIA .
MALAYSIA NEED BOTH MERITOCRACYAND STRONG POLITICAL WILL TO MOVE AND STAY AHEAD. MALAYSIA CANNOT ALLOW NGO LIKE PERKASA TO DICTATE THEIR NATIONAL AND ECONOMIC GROWTH AGENDA.
UMNO BN …LETS BE FRANK NEM CANNOT BE IMPLEMENTED OR BE SUCESSFUL IF YOUR(UMNO BN LAWMAKER ) ALLOW NARROW SECTARIAN INTERESTS DISRUPTING THESE GROWTH PLAN ABSOLUTELY MUST BEREGARDLESS OF RACE CREED AND RELIGION .
ITS NOT TOO LATE TO REFORM AND I BELIEVE PR GOVERNMENT CAN PROPEL THESE PLAN EFFECTIVELY BY FOCUSING ON ATTRACTING GOOD POOL OF YOUNG TALENT PROFESSIONAL WORKING ABROAD TO COME HOME ,; REFORMING THE EDUCATION POLICIESAND SYSTEM ; REBUILD WHAT tun mathadirism HAD DESTROYED OR MESSED UP EVERYTHING THING DURING HIS 22 YRS OF TENURE EXCEPT HIS ONE AND ONLY TWIN PET-TOWER ACHEIVEMENT KNOWN WORLDWIDE.TDM JUST ONLY A GOOD ELOQUENT TALKATIVE CONDEMNING PERSON BUT NOT ECONOMICAL, POLITICAL SOUND ,TOO CORRUPTED;WASTING TOO MUCH $$$$$$$$ ON WHITE ELEPHANT PROJECTS THAT ONLY ENRICHING HIS COLONY ;INCOMPETENT AND TOO SELF- CENTRE WEAK MINDED CHARACTER (SORRY TO CRITICISE HIM)
WELL PR DAP ITS NOT THAT TOUGH BUT ALSO THIS IS NO EASY TASK AND ITS REALLY REQUIRES STRONG, INTELLECTUAL, LEADERSHIP LAWMAKER TEAM DARES TO ACT WITHOUT FEAR WITH HIGH INTEGRITY,AND CONVICTIONS AS WELL.REDUILDS ALL GOVT INSTITUTIONS OF GOVERNANCE;TOTALLY ERADICATE CORRUPTION IN NGO,GOVT,CHARITIES,MAKING MERTIOCRACY A WAY OF LIFE CULTURE, AND LIBERALISING THE ECONOMY AT THE RIGHT POINT OF TIME .
JUST REMEMBER ALLAH CREATED ALL MEN BORN EQUAL AND NO DISCRIMINATION OF OTHER RACE .
IN THE 13th GENERAL ELECTION WELL I AM NOT SURPRISE TO SEE SARAWAK SABAH WILL BE IN THE HANDS OF PR LAWMAKERS.
Dear PM,
Time you stood up to Mahathir’s bullying. Be a man. Make good use of the power bestowed upon you as Prime Minister. Put Mahathir and his trouble-maker allies behind bars, suspend UM, mobilised all your Lieutenants to go on a nation-wide campaign to convince the Malays that your proposed policies will benefit the whole nation and all races in the long run; and that their welfare will be better looked after this way – YOUR WAY, Not Mahathir’s way which only bring benefits to his own family members, cronies and friends.
Maybe if you have this courage to fight back now, you might have a fairly good chance to win the rakyats support and extend your primiership, otherwise, sir, you are a goner!
Go man, go, go, go …….I will stand solidly behind you. So do, I am sure, many Malaysians who never liked you until now.
katak ali now says the party is open to “dirty” chinese and indians now. yes, we are not clean to enter the surau but clean enough to give him our support.
aiyoo,..katak, pungguk sudah cuci kah?
I can understand Najib deciding he got to do something about Perkasa. What I don’t get is the plan to do so. Like his plans for 1Malaysia, NEM etc. it makes absolutely no sense. The pieces don’t fit, have no way to come together.
His plans just sucks basically.
My advice to everyone else about this issue right now is, stay calm and just shut up..Make it clear that whatever the outcome, its UMNO/BN responsibility to ensure things are calm and orderly – absolutely no one else is responsible, no excuses acceptable.
Finally! Finally the outside chance that the formerly dying man will become PM again. Why are the rambutans on the trees shrinking? Is it because they are about to get a free press? People get the leaders they deserve, so wake up Malaysians!
Only weak and wobbly-kneed people who need to be nannied will chose personalities like that Malaysian Dilemma (There is a little praise for him here, and that is because I’m hedging, heh, heh, heh!)
Mamakthir sat for 22 years as Lord of the Manor. He presided on a land that had oil, gas, tin, rubber, palm oil, timber, pepper. For many of these commodities, we were the numero uno producer in the world. What happened to all the riches ? How many hundreds of billions went down the drain, or more accurately, down the pockets of his cronies and children ?
All@h keeps Mamakthir alive to see the day when Bolehland goes bankrupt, and then the truth will finally prevail.
Utusan the garbage reporting media is UMNO’s mouth piece. It should rightly be the instrument of the current UMNO President. However, from the way it gave coverage to PERKASA and that half dead highly corrupted mamak kutty, it is sending a message which is loud and clear, that is, if there is a conflict between that Dog mamak kutty and Najib, Utusan would side mamak kutty and that dickhead Ib Ali.
If Najib perceives Utusan’s act or omission as detrimental to his command and control then he must hold Utusan and those racialistic pea brain reporters by the balls and take immediate action to replace Utusan staff with his own people.
On the other, if nothing is done to utusan after what it had done, Najib’s leadership will once again will be pit under a powerful microscope. As it is now, Utusan is undermining Najib’s leadership. UMNO members without thinking twice will fearlessly critize Najib in the open in support of PERKASA. Know why they are daring enough? Mamak kutty will come to their rescue. Agree?
I hate to say this that Najib will backtrack in respect of BN’s stand toward PERKASA. Another flip-flop?
Hope not. So far there were only about 4 or 5 UMNO leaders who had come in support of Ku Nan’s statements. How about the firebrands in UMNO? Everything is quiet on the eastern front.