Perkasa members protest outside MCA’s headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, April 25, 2011
Perkasa today said the Chinese and Indian communities should view it in a positive light as it was acting in accordance with the law.
The right-wing Malay group added that there was no secret agenda behind its struggle to defend the rights of Malays.
Kedah Perkasa president Syed Osman Mansor said it fought for Malays because “the Malays have become disunited because of politics.”
He said, however, that Perkasa has improved Malay unity as seen in two large gatherings held in Pasir Mas, Kelantan, and Pasir Salak, Perak, this year.
Syed Osman was speaking ahead of Perkasa’s launch of the 1 Bumiputera campaign this Saturday in the northern state, where he expects 30,000 people to show up.
Perkasa had said it would champion Utusan Malaysia’s call for Malay parties and NGOs to form a 1 Melayu, 1 Bumi movement which the Umno-owned newspaper said was in response to growing Chinese political power due to DAP’s racial politics.
Its secretary-general Syed Hassan Syed Ali told The Malaysian Insider that it would call its movement 1 Bumiputera “as we have no problems about ethnic Bumi ethnic groups having differing political ideologies but there has to be a collective consciousness in the interest of Bumiputeras.”
However, the group’s influential patron Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had described the idea as disastrous for the country.
The former prime minister warned that such a movement would eventually result in a two-party system where each side would be dominated by one race.
