'New affirmative action policies could create divide'

Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) chief executive Wan Saiful Wan Jan has warned that new affirmative action policies for the bumiputera may result in further division to the country.

Wan Saiful, a political analyst, said there are Malays and non-bumiputera are uncomfortable with what prime minister Najib Abdul Razak had announced on Saturday.

For him, he said the measures announced by Najib is a bad thing and may result in the formation of classes which may divide the country further.

"However, Malays and bumiputera who have the same kind of thinking that the affirmative action specifically on the bumiputera is unfair should band together to debate the issue healthily and not be too emotional and discuss this in a rational and non-provocative way," he said.

He said while the Federal Constitution was drafted with the intention to unite the nation, it may not achieve such results due to Article 153 which outline the special position of the Malays and the bumiputera community.

The effects of Article 153 were further enhanced by the New Economic Policy and later the New Economic Model.

"Now the constitution may become an issue of dividing the people where certain groups are forced to accept a group of people that is superior to others. It is unfortunate we have this clauses... but the problem is that we are not debating the clauses on whether it should be there or not.

“It is a public document which is owned by us. However, there is not much debate on it despite everyone having a vested interest in it.”

Drop the crutch

Wan Saiful said this in a forum titled “50 years of democracy, has it weakened or strengthen the constitution”, organised by Malaysian Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights (MCCHR).

The event was moderated by former Bar Council president and Bersih 2.0 co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan.

The Ideas chief executive further added that Malays and bumiputeras can never accept such crutches or dependence on the government to last long and gave a period of 10 to 15 years for such affirmative action to cease.

Although he recognised that he is a successful product of affirmative action policies, he said it should not continue indefinitely before dependency kicks in.

"As with the Chinese and Indians, the bumiputera and the Malays should be able to stand on their own and have confidence in themselves without the support or interference from the government.

"This realisation must come from the Malays themselves," he said.

He said that one dilemma which Malays who concur with his views face was whether or not to make use of affirmative action policies afforded to them, because rejecting it may result in such facilities being given to crony politicians.

Unconstitutional

Constitutional expert Tommy Thomas, who was among the panelists, opined that Najib's new policies could be described as unconstitutional based on Article 8 regarding equality.

Thomas said that the policies were discriminatory and went against the Federal Constitution's provision that everyone is equal before the law, nor did the law provide for affirmative action.

"They do not have legal underpinning and can be described as ultra vires (acting beyond) of the constitution. It can be tested in court," he claimed.

Thomas said Najib's action was akin to thanking the Malay and bumiputera electorate for their votes in supporting BN in the recent election.

This, he said, was based on an estimated 1.5 percent increase in Malay and bumiputera support from the 2008 general election, where an estimated 60 percent of Malay and bumiputera voters voted for BN.