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PMX Anwar receiving flak from India’s media
Anwar and PH, watch out! Muhyiddin and PN no more ‘I Am Malay First’
KUALA LUMPUR, May 7, 2025: The next general could be in 2027 but Perikatan Nasional (PN) supremo Muhyiddin Yassin has already started fishing for votes.
He is now saying his 2010 rallying cry, “I Am Malay First” is no more important and that he is a Malay who cares for all Malaysians.
That’s a huge change in political manoeuvring which may drive multiracial Malaysians, frustrated with Anwar and Pakatan Harapan (PH)’s lack of 3R (Race, Religion, Royalty) action against racial religious bigots, to accept PN as their alternative Government.
No News Is Bad News reproduces below an opinion piece posted by Free Malaysia Today and our previous postings:
Although clutching at straws, we welcome Muhyiddin’s nuance
PN chairperson Muhyiddin Yassin’s prioritising his Malaysian-ness over his Malay-ness is laudable even if taken with a pinch of salt.
From Terence Netto
Perikatan Nasional chairperson Muyhiddin Yassin’s announcement that he is now a Malay leader who cares for all Malaysians is a welcome change from 15 years ago when he was keen to show that he was a Malay leader first and then only a Malaysian one.
The older description of himself, done when he was deputy prime minister to the newly installed government of Najib Razak, placed him firmly in the category of “Malay right winger”.
This came when Najib, who had just taken prime ministerial reins from a hapless Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, was moving to de-emphasise the salience of race in Malaysian politics.
On the heels of that de-emphasis came notice of Najib’s intention to water down aspects of the NEP, accompanied by the notion that the time had come for an anti-hate speech law to be promulgated.
Into this evolving scenario then deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s assertion that he was “Malay first” and only after that a “Malaysian” set himself squarely against Najib’s NEP-liberalising moves and his effort to lower the lid on racist speech.
In conjunction with former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and with the aid of Perkasa firebrand Ibrahim Ali, the ground was prepared for resistance by the ultras and demagogues against Najib’s measures.
That’s when Muhyiddin’s “I am Malay first” became coded language for opposition to any move to shift the national discourse to a plane where it could be contemplated that Malaysians envision a future free from the cramp of race and religion.
In fact, the liberalising moves initiated by Najib in the first 18 months of his takeover of the reins from Abdullah Badawi in April 2009 are, in the perspective of the decade and a half since, looked on now as an emollient time.
Some pundits say that in retrospect it was a period that was rife with promise of the country’s deliverance from the twin obsessions of race and religion.
The assertion, “I am Malay first”, by Muhyiddin, took on an ominous hue and has come to summarise the ideological stance of the Malay right wing against moves to forge an egalitarian polity.
So Muhyiddin’s admittedly mild disavowal of that granite stumbling block to a more equable polity must be hailed as a step in favour of progress.
No doubt, sceptics will see the disavowal as an attempt by Muhyiddin to garner votes from the non-Malays for the PN coalition he leads which is shaping up for the next general election that many expect to be held earlier than its due date in late 2027.
Further, doubters will point to the situation in which Muhyiddin made the disavowal, that is, at a political event organised by the Indian component of his coalition, Malaysian Indian People’s Party.
Muhyiddin knows that Indians voters, hitherto strong supporters of the Pakatan Harapan coalition led by Anwar Ibrahim, have become deeply disgruntled with the Madani government and are open to overtures from credible alternatives.
It appears he is bidding to entice this disenchanted vote bank to support PN.
This is what is good about a democracy: it shuns finality and considers very little as writ in stone.
Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.
Tuesday, 6 May 2025
India’s media: PMX discriminates Malaysian Hindus!
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No News Is Bad News
India’s media: PMX discriminates Malaysian Hindus!
KUALA LUMPUR, May 6, 2025: No matter how hard Malaysia’s 10th Prime Minister (PMX) Anwar Ibrahim tries to project himself as an international hero or global figure, he has failed miserably.
According to James Chin’s Facebook post, go ask the Indians and Arabs why they rejected the great PMX.
And India has also crossed the line, accusing Anwar of discriminating the Hindus in Malaysia!
Bringing such international embarrassment to himself (Anwar) and Malaysia!
This was what James Chin posted on Facebook:
James Chin
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Has the mask finally slipped? In just one week, PMX has faced sharp public criticism from a major Indian TV outlet and an Indian commentator. These are not even the top-tier Indian media or commentator.
Less reported is the apparent lack of regard for PMX among Arab states on the Palestinian issue. They’ve excluded him from key Middle East decisions. Sceptical? Check the editorials in leading Arab media—not one suggests Malaysia should take a prominent role in the Gaza crisis.
I’m not offering my opinion here so no need to attack me. Go ask the Indians and Arabs why they rejected the great PMX.
Tuesday, 6 May 2025
Umno’s next political victims: DAP and PH
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No News Is Bad News
Umno’s next political victims: DAP and PH
KUALA LUMPUR, May 6, 2025: MCA former vice-president Ti Lian Ker is partly right and partly wrong when he says his party’s diminishing support is due to Umno.
Ti is partly right that MCA’s political fate is due to Umno but it it not diminishing! It is diminished!
MCA has only itself to blame for being a political eunuch lapdog to Umno.
MCA is already politically buried by Malaysians who have already soundly rejected it in successive general elections.
The racial and religious bigoted Dr Akmal “Ham/unpatriotic” Saleh’s Umno next political victims are DAP and Pakatan Harapan (PH).
If DAP and PKR (PH) continue to play Umno’s racist and religious political game, sooner or later, Malaysians will “give up” (like they did on Barisan Nasional) for a third alternative or force.
And that could even drive them to Bersatu and Perikatan Nasional (PN) which is led by the racist and unpatriotic Muhyiddin "I Am Malays First" Yassin who has this week, short of apologising for rallying cry, said he is a Malay for all Malaysians.
No News Is Bad News reproduces below a news report that shows MCA is not aware that they are now politically irrelevant to Malaysians:
MCA’s diminishing support due to Umno’s ‘arrogance’, says ex-veep
Ti Lian Ker says MCA was seen as guilty by association and ended up as collateral damage.
Then Umno Youth leader Hishamuddin Hussein’s keris-kissing stunt 20 years ago was one of several reasons why non-Malay voters crossed over to the opposition, says a former MCA vice-president. (Bernama pic)
PETALING JAYA: A former MCA vice-president said support for the Chinese-based party declined after 2004, in large part due to the perceived arrogance displayed by Umno, its Barisan Nasional ally.
Ti Lian Ker said non-Malay support for BN took a hit following the controversy that arose after then Umno Youth leader Hishamuddin Hussein wielded a keris at the Umno annual general assembly in 2005, a stunt which upset the non-Malay community.
Despite Hishammuddin later apologising for his antics, Ti said analysts cited the incident as one of several which pushed the non-Malays over to the opposition in the 2008 general election.
Ti Lian Ker.
Ti said five years earlier, then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had likened Suqiu, a Chinese lobby group, to “communists from the past” and the Al-Ma’unah cult.
In 2006, non-Muslim ministers were forced to retract a memorandum calling upon then prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to protect the rights of religious minorities. Ti said the move left a bitter taste in the mouth of the Chinese community which had voted overwhelmingly for BN and Umno in the 2004 general election, which was the first with Abdullah leading BN.
Another incident that riled up the Chinese community was the vitriol aimed at Robert Kuok in 2018 following accusations that the tycoon had funded the DAP’s bid to topple the BN government, Ti said.
He added that Umno’s Nazri Aziz, who had challenged Kuok to return from Hong Kong to contest in the general election, had refused to apologise for calling the tycoon a “pondan”.
“These incidents did not sit well with the Chinese community, especially after MCA had persuaded the community to back Dr Mahathir Mohamad in his spat with Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah as well as support Abdullah Ahmad Badawi later.
“And we (MCA) were guilty by association and ended up as collateral damage,” he told FMT.
Ti was commenting on Umno Supreme Council member Puad Zarkashi’s call for MCA to reflect on its declining support from the Chinese community.
Puad said while he sympathised with MCA, the party should ask itself why its support had declined to such an extent that it only managed to win two parliamentary seats in the 15th general election in November 2022. He suggested that the party’s poor performance had nothing to do with BN.
Puad’s comments were made in response to MCA secretary-general Chong Sin Woon urging the party to take charge of its own destiny if BN continued to drag its feet over a clear direction for the coalition.
Ti also said that the prediction by former finance minister Daim Zainuddin in 2018, widely reported in the vernacular papers at the time, that Pakatan Harapan would make inroads in the general election had also swayed the Chinese community to back the then opposition.
The former deputy unity minister said Umno should not close an eye to these “historical facts”. It must admit that MCA should not shoulder the entire blame for its dwindling support, especially when the party had remained loyal to BN despite the controversies that plagued the coalition, including the 1MDB scandal.
He also felt that Puad’s remarks were off the mark and reeked of arrogance.
Chong, he said, was merely expressing concern about Umno gravitating too much to PH, especially DAP.
Right now, the impression, rightly or wrongly, was that Umno was selling out to DAP, which could also be costly to Umno, Ti said.
“Umno cannot continue to shut its component parties out or leave them in the dark as this will mean that Umno is selling out BN in favour of DAP, which in the long run could spell the end of BN.”
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