Ibrahim Ali says Umno sec-gen does not want Malay votes

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 8 – Malay rights group Perkasa chief Datuk Ibrahim Ali accused Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor today of favouring Chinese voters over the Malays.

His remarks were in response to Tengku Adnan’s statement today that the party would not back Ibrahim in the next general election as he was allegedly eroding Barisan Nasional’s (BN) support among the non-Malays.

“He (Tengku Adnan) wants Chinese votes. He does not want Malay votes,” Ibrahim told The Malaysian Insider today.

He, however, refused to elaborate further, saying: “No need. This is enough.”

The firebrand politician’s reaction to Tengku Adnan was unusually muted compared to the scathing insults he had recently hurled at Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin for issuing a similar statement.

Ibrahim had called Khairy “stupid”, “crazy”, “feeble-minded” and a “confused child”.

Like Tengku Adnan, Khairy also reportedly said that Perkasa was one of the reasons behind the waning support of non-Malay voters for the ruling coalition.

Ibrahim brushed off the Rembau MP’s statement as the “talk of a stupid, brainless person” and said that Umno was being destroyed because of “feeble-minded” people like Khairy.

The Pasir Mas MP also singled out alleged public hatred of Khairy as the reason behind BN’s historic losses in the last general election.

Last month, Ibrahim called Khairy “mentally ill” for threatening to leave Umno if the majority of its members supported Perkasa.

Tengku Adnan, however, dismissed allegations that Umno had strong ties with the Malay rights group and said that his party would contest the Pasir Mas seat.

He stressed that most Perkasa leaders were defeated candidates in the last Umno election in 2008 who merely sought a political platform to be heard.

The Umno secretary-general had reminded Perkasa leaders to monitor their fight for Malay rights before it spiralled out of control, which could end in a civil war.

He noted that BN had to address the needs of all racial groups in the country and could not afford to discriminate against anyone if it wanted to continue governing Malaysia.

Perkasa has been pressuring the Najib administration to protect what the group calls the constitutional right of the Malays, despite widespread acknowledgement that four decades of affirmative action have hurt the country’s competitiveness.

Recently, Ibrahim challenged Datuk Seri Najib Razak to declare that his 1 Malaysia concept — introduced to promote national unity — was based on the concept of “Ketuanan Melayu” (Malay supremacy), which Ibrahim claimed to be enshrined in the Constitution.