PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang said today that Malay rights will only be guaranteed with strict observance of Islamic principles, and called for a rejection of Malay supremacy.
He said PAS will not practise Umno’s brand of Malay supremacy.
“If Malays want to be safe, they have to uphold Islam. If they want to uphold the concept of Malay (supremacy) they will not be safe,” Hadi (picture) said in his speech at a PAS function on Malay rights.
PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution, who was also present at the event, called on Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalition partners to decide whether they wanted to address or avoid the issue of Malay supremacy.
“We have to decide whether we want to address this issue, or avoid it. We are at a crossroads here.
“Either way we have to decide. We don’t want to be in a position where we don’t,” he said.
The Machang MP said there has been a surge of race-based politics since the last general election.
PAS today affirmed its commitment to prioritise the dominant Islamic race in the country — the Malays.
PAS spiritual adviser Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat said that the PR coalition partner had never forsaken Malay rights and that it was Umno’s economic policies which had caused division and unequal distribution among the various races in Malaysia.
“For PAS, Malays need to be prioritised in our agenda because they are the dominant Islamic race in Malaysia.
“Umno has not been upholding Islam or the Malays,” he said today in his opening address at a PAS convention on empowering Malays here this morning.
The convention aims to silence critics who have derided the party for being anti-Malay in aligning themselves with the DAP.
Nik Aziz said that while Islam was not race-based, as an Islamic party in Malaysia PAS would prioritise Malays because they were the country’s foremost Muslim community.
The convention today, dubbed “Konvensyen Nasional Pengupayaan Bangsa” (National Race Empowerment Convention), is seen as PAS’s attempt to attract Malay voter support which has been declining in recent years.
PR has seen a decline in Malay support since July 2009, when a by-election in the 99 per cent Malay seat of Manek Urai, Kelantan saw a previous 1,352-vote majority in the PAS stronghold drop to a wafer-thin 65.
Malays continued to swing towards Barisan Nasional (BN) in subsequent polls, from around seven to 10 per cent, allowing the ruling coalition to grab Hulu Selangor and Galas from PR.
The most recent by-election in Tenang, Johor, saw PR fail to make any headway among the mainly Felda Malays as BN swept over 83 per cent of Malay votes to increase its majority by over 1,200 votes.
