Hindraf to lend its strength to ABU

Hindraf Chairman P.Waytha Moorthy issued the following press statement today.

This is a most positive development and I personally wish to extend a hand to my brothers and sisters in Hindraf in welcoming them to this Rakyat-driven initiative to rid our nation of the cancer that UMNO and BN are.

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Recent developments seem to point in the direction of a hardening of UMNO’s political attitude. This is what we get reading what PM Najib has been saying and reading between the lines of what he has been saying.

He is creating a false feel good factor by handing out goodies to his target constituencies, the rural Malays, the urban poor and the civil servants as seen by his various pronouncements in the budget, the various handout schemes and various other subsidy maintenance programs. He has been talking a hard brand of racist talk to his core constituency. He has been mingling with organizations acknowledged to have questionable credentials. For the large segment of educated young and the middle class voters he is creating an illusion of liberalization and moderation when in fact the recent changes and additions to our laws – the amendments to the Employment Act, the new Freedom of Assembly bill are in reality detrimental to the people. Even as he is gearing up for the polls with all of this, he is also gearing up for more repression on the other hand in preparation for the unpopular and postponed actions post-election. It is clear what the future holds if left unattended.

Given all this HINDRAF has decided that the time has come to begin open activity to counter the trend which if unchecked will be detrimental to all of us. One of the key decisions that we had taken at our recently concluded National Convention on the 4^th of December was to increase our engagement on issues of common interest with other civil society organization, NGOs and like minded political organizations.

It is therefore timely that the “Anything But UMNO” (ABU) movement is being mooted now. Since our inception our primary objective has been to remove UMNO from the seat of power in Putrajaya. The objectives of this movement dovetail closely with our own and this will enable us to create synergies that we believe has the potential to create another Tsunami – only this time a Tsunami that will completely sweep UMNO off its feet.

We perceive tremendous potential in this initiative. Anything but UMNO holding the reins of power in the country certainly will mean an opening up of democratic space for all of us to operate more freely and for us then to be able to work to bring about the changes and reforms we all so seek.

We hope other organizations will begin to converge on this opportunity to let that fiercely wild Tsunami wave develop. HINDRAF’s core people will be present at the Taman Melewar meet on the 15^th of December 2011 for the inaugural session of ABU.

- The People's Parliament