KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 11 — Datuk Ibrahim Ali has shrugged off Barisan Nasional’s (BN) disavowal of his Perkasa group, calling them attempts by the ruling coalition to gain political mileage with non-Malay voters.
“With one shot against Perkasa, everything is solved,” the Perkasa chief said, and then queried if BN was trying to distract voters from MCA president Datuk Seri Chua Soi Lek’s “porn video” and MIC’s leadership issues by hitting out at the Malay rights group.
Presenting himself tongue-in-cheek as a martyr to national unity, Ibrahim said he was willing to endure detractors’ slings and arrows if that would help BN win.
Claiming he was not fighting for any personal political agenda, the Pasir Mas MP said his only purpose was to make the government aware of the Malay grassroots sentiment — of being sidelined so BN can court the non-Malay vote.
"Sometimes I fight to lose... to make the voice heard," he said, arguing that unity of Malaysian society on the whole was dependent on Malay unity as they constituted the largest ethnic group in the country.
In any case, Ibrahim believed such attacks will only strengthen the resolve of Perkasa members to carry on their fight to preserve Malay rights.
"We're not the slightest bit perturbed by attacks from all sides. I am not worried," he said, and urged members of his non-governmental organisation not to lose sight of their struggle.
Barisan Nasional leaders finally came together yesterday in an apparent face-off with Perkasa and Ibrahim, who has been seen as a thorn in the side of the Najib administration.
Umno’s top leaders, who have kept silent so far on the topic of Perkasa, yesterday dropped their defences when approached on the matter and agreed that supporting the controversial group’s views could prove detrimental to BN's struggle.
Leading the fray was 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 Datuk Ibrahim Ali and his fledgling 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 response, Perkasa secretary-general Syed Hassan Syed Ali earlier today warned political parties today that they risked electoral defeat if they attempted to alienate the Malay rights group.
He said members from Malay political parties were signing up because they felt their leaders were afraid to speak out against the leaders of “certain races” for fear of losing political support, claiming that only Perkasa was brave enough to defend their rights.
Ibrahim also took the opportunity today to hit out at Umno's statements of disavowal and said that Perkasa had never asked for any support from the Malay party, or any other party.
"When did we ever asked for their support? We are not a tool for any political party," he said.
-The Malaysian Insider
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