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.