Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

DAP unlikely to abandon PR partners — Political analyst

Posted: 20 May 2011 06:02 PM PDT

Jeniri was commenting on former vice chancellor of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) Tan Sri Nordin Kardi's statement encouraging DAP to join BN as Umno's pragmatic policies were a better match for the secularist party than PAS' Islamic theology.

Borneo Post

DAP will sink and swim with its Pakatan Rakyat partners rather than join the BN, said local political analyst Dr Jeniri Amir.

As such, he said DAP would not want to abandon its partners, namely PKR and PAS, in any way.

"After all DAP and its partners in Pakatan are looking forward to form the next federal government," Jeniri told The Borneo Post here yesterday.

He also said DAP's agenda was not similar to those of the BN.

Nordin, who headed UUM until last year, also wrote in Utusan Malaysia yesterday that DAP was better suited for Umno than MCA or Gerakan.

"Many of DAP's demands have already been met by BN such as meritocracy for universities and a 'Malaysian Malaysia' which is already under '1Malaysia', he wrote, referring to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak's slogan of inclusion.

Nordin, who currently holds the Za'ba chair of Malay Civilisation at Universiti Perguruan Sultan Idris, said there was no need to change the status quo as BN already had both secular and theological ideas and looked after the interests of all races.

"If the excuse is that BN is still not clean, then the better reasoning is to reform BN, not replace it," said Nordin.

He wrote that MCA only emerged during independence to secure business deals that were previously monopolised by British companies.

However, the People's Action Party that has governed Singapore since it was removed from the Federation of Malaysia was formed due to concerns that the Chinese community would be led by communists.

Nordin said that DAP, which was formed in Malaysia after the two countries split, had the same ideology as PAP and was well-matched with Umno which also rejected leaders who were left-leaning.

Najib had recently warned Chinese voters that they would not be represented in the Cabinet if they fail to support BN's Chinese candidates in a general election that he is expected to call within the year.

It came after MCA pledged to reject government posts if it did not improve on its 2008 election performance, where it only won 15 of 40 parliamentary seats contested.

Chinese support for the ruling coalition has also been on the slide with nearly all Chinese majority seats in the April 16 Sarawak election going to DAP.

Can Umno do this?

Posted: 20 May 2011 05:48 PM PDT