KUALA LUMPUR: Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) youth chief Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman has pledged to press his party to do away with its Bumiputera-centric position if the opposition takes over Putrajaya for two terms.
Currently, non-Bumiputera are restricted to associate membership and cannot vote or contest for party positions. This has also led to critics labelling PPBM as a racist party.
As such, Saddiq said he will fight for non-Malay inclusivity in the party, while stating at the moment, PPBM still needs time to introduce suitable reforms.
“What I say (about non-Malay inclusivity in PPBM) is what I believe in and what I will fight for. I acknowledge with great empathy the need to move forward, it’s (PPBM) not a perfect model.
“However, this doesn’t mean wiping out the Malay identity, but there’s no need for a pure race-based party. It can be predominantly Chinese or predominantly Malay, but it should be multi-racial,” he said as quoted by news portal The Malay Mail Online yesterday.
The Asia’s former top debater also said that the current practice of the party is necessary for its ambition to challenge Umno in rural-Malay areas.
According to him, when PPBM leaders were setting up the party in 2016, they discussed the matter, but decided to have a Bumiputera-centric position in order to break Umno’s strongholds.
Nevertheless, he said the party need to go through proper reforms as the “non-Malay support would still be vital”, adding this was why it created the limited membership for the non-Malays.
Recently, its ally, Parti Amanah Negara (PAN) vice-president Datuk Mujahid Yusof Rawa told PPBM to do away with its racial focus, saying that the Malay community will be stuck with its trapped mentality without reforms.
In Aug last year, PPBM chairman Tun Dr Mahathir when defending his party’s Bumiputera-centric position, said the reason the party did so was because “the people in rural and unsophisticated urban constituencies still want racial politics”.
Dr Mahathir had also said that this was the reality of the political landscape, despite sophisticated and highly educated urbanites’ belief that racial politics does not belong in modern times.