Umno the one betraying Malays, says DAP

Bukit Bendera MP Zairil Khir Johari says Umno is to blame for betraying the Malay community. – Reuters pic, August 17, 2015.

A DAP lawmaker has hit out at Umno president and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak for saying that Malays will lose out if Umno is not in power, adding that it is actually the party which has betrayed the community.

Bukit Bendera MP Zairil Khir Johari (pic, right) said this was seen in how Umno, as the lynchpin of the ruling coalition, had for the past three decades ruined agencies and government-linked companies meant to help and benefit Malays.

These include Felda, which gave thousands of landless Malay peasants jobs and property, and the Pilgrims’ Fund Board or Lembaga Tabung Haji, which subsidises costs for Muslims going on the haj or pilgrimage in Mecca.

Zairil said Umno had also turned a Malay-dominated bureaucracy respected and trusted during the 1960s and 1970s into a victim of its iron-fisted rule.

“I am confident that the Malays will not become ‘bangsat’ in their own land without Umno. But in reality, it is Umno who are who are ‘bangsat’ for betraying Malays and Malaysia all this while,” Zairil said in a statement.

The Malay term "bangsat" can mean bastard, villain or in this context, an outcast.

Zairil was referring to the term used by Najib yesterday in a speech to an Umno division.

According to news portal Malaysiakini, Najib had told Umno members that he would do everything to ensure that Umno and Barisan Nasional remained in power.

“If Umno is not in power, the Malays will be bastards in their own land,” Najib said yesterday while opening the Grik Umno division meeting in Perak.

- TMI