Ku Li to open Perkasa meeting in the hope of turning right-wing Malay group around

Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah will open Perkasa's fourth annual general meeting next week. – The Malaysian Insider pic, December 15, 2013.Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah's credentials as a statesman and a politician with enlightened views on race are now on the line as he has reportedly accepted Perkasa's invitation to open its fourth annual general meeting next week.

While the Gua Musang MP has regularly met Perkasa president Datuk Ibrahim Ali as both are from Kelantan, they cannot be more different as chalk and cheese.

Tengku Razaleigh is urbane, sophisticated and cosmopolitan while Ibrahim has been known to be crude with a narrow racial view that has seen him jump from one party to another, earning the sobriquet of a “political frog”.

The Malaysian Insider understands that the former finance minister and Umno veteran, popularly known as Ku Li, has confirmed he would attend the meeting at Pusat Islam in Kuala Lumpur on December 22.

Those close to the Kelantan prince said he had weighed the pros and cons of associating with the right-wing Malay group before confirming his attendance at the assembly themed “Upholding the Constitution for the wellbeing of all”.

"He wants to engage the Perkasa leadership and persuade them to be more inclusive. He wants them to look at the bigger picture," a Ku Li confidante told The Malaysian Insider.

Tengku Razaleigh, who was tasked with setting up national oil firm Petronas, has been an advocate of market and economic liberalisation in the past decade unlike Ibrahim who believes that the Malays should have a greater control and share of the economy.

Ibrahim has articulated his views through Perkasa, which boasts a 500,000 membership mainly from Umno, which he found after 2008 elections when he stood on a PAS ticket.

He turned independent to support the ruling Barisan Nasional after Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi stepped down as prime minister.

His relationship with Ku Li goes back to the time when both were in the old Umno and the now defunct Semangat 46, which was once in power with PAS in the Kelantan government.

Both only returned to the Umno fold in 1996, where Ibrahim eventually became a deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department in Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's government.

Ku Li, who was also once trade minister, had been Dr Mahathir's political foe when he ran for the Umno presidency in 1987 which he lost by 44 votes. Ironically, Dr Mahathir is the Perkasa patron.

Last month, former Election Commission chairman Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Rahman announced that he had joined the Malay rights group.

Ibrahim told The Malaysian Insider that more well-known personalities would soon join the movement but he declined to name them.

“Perkasa is open to all... There are more people interested in joining Perkasa, including some big names. I will elaborate more on this during the AGM,” he said.

Other prominent members include former inspector-general of police Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Noor.

Perkasa grabbed the headlines on November 24, when Abdul Rashid announced he had joined the group six months ago to help the group achieve its goal of strengthening Malay-Muslim dominance.

He added that the three redelineation exercises undertaken while he was chief were done to keep Umno and in his view, Malay Muslims, in power.