Umno Youth leader drubs Perkasa boss over 'incendiary remarks'

An Umno Youth leader has criticised Perkasa president Ibrahim Alifor urging Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to reduce the number of Indian ministers in his cabinet.

Shahril Hamdan acknowledged there is general unease among the Malay community over Minister in the Prime Minister's Department P Waythamoorthy's remarks concerning last week's temple unrest.

The Umno Youth vice-chief also noted Waythamoorthy's accusation during an interview with a foreign media a decade ago that the BN government had discriminated Indians in Malaysia.

A recording of the interview had recently gone viral. Waythamoorthy was then a leader of Hindraf.

However, Shahril said the dissatisfaction towards the minister should not be exploited into a racial issue or to use racial rhetoric to gain popularity.

“Even if Waythamoorthy 'messed up', that is no reason to ask the prime minister to reduce Indian ministers. That is straight up playing the racial card, there's no other way to see it. And I'm against it totally.

“Relatedly if anyone wants to ask Waythamoorthy to step down, it should be because they feel he is unfit to be the unity minister, not because he is Indian. And one should definitely not imply that therefore we shouldn't have 'so many Indians' in the cabinet,” he told Malaysiakini.

Shahril said while Waythamoorthy's remarks can be interpreted as inflammatory, there is no need to respond with more incendiary statements.

“I think Waythamoorthy's initial apology could have come off as more sincere instead of qualifying it (his remarks) to the hilt. But similarly, why should anyone else respond in kind?

“In the end, all they are doing is perpetuating this 'us against them' mentality. If the extremes prevail and the centre doesn't hold, Malaysia changes, for the worse,” he warned.

In a Twitter posting earlier, Shahril had responded to news reports quoting Ibrahim describing Waythamoorthy as “menteri celaka” and asking for the number of Indian ministers to be reduced.

“It is one thing to ask for Waythamoorthy to resign, it is quite another to demand to reduce 'Indian' ministers and then claim that "Because of him, now there is tension between the races". Your statement 'tak cause tension pulak' (Doesn't your statement cause tension as well?).

“And this idea that 'all the while, all the races have been peaceful' until PH (Pakatan Harapan) won..that's just lazy. We all have had a stake and a hand in keeping things calm (or not). Whoever is/was PM or government,” read the Umno Youth leader's tweets. -Mkini