Breaking Views
The Malaysian Insider
August 15, 2010

AUG 15 — Tun Abdul Razak Hussein could never have imagined that his brainchild, the New Economic Policy (NEP), would ever split the country.

That it has 40 years after coming into being. Meant to eradicate poverty among all Malaysians and uplift the Bumiputeras who were economically backward then, it is now seen as the sacrosanct right of every Malay.

Especially the corporate ones who fear losing their tranche of Approved Permits (APs), shares and government contracts.

The NEP’s great defender today is Datuk Ibrahim Ali, the diminutive Perkasa chief with lofty ambitions of keeping privileges as Malay rights. With him, to a certain extent, is Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who argues the policy is needed until the Malays reach their targets.

Left unsaid is that 22 years of the 40 years of the NEP, which officially ended in 1990, was under Dr Mahathir’s helm and shadow. He brought Malaysia, and Malaysians especially the Malays, kicking and screaming into the 21st century but that wasn’t enough to hit targets set under the NEP.

Except for a few tycoons and AP holders. And government-linked-companies (GLCs) that crowd out the small-time Bumiputera and other Malaysian entrepreneurs hoping to get a slice of the Malaysian economic pie.

Tun Abdul Razak’s banker son Datuk Seri Nazir has argued that the present-day NEP affirmative action policies are a bastardised version of his father’s vision for the country. His elder brother, Datuk Seri Najib, is currently the prime minister who has proposed the “promising” New Economic Model (NEM), as described by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the past week.

But the NEM remains on paper, scraps of which announced but yet to be implemented. The IMF is hoping it will be executed soon for Malaysia needs the reforms. The MCA is asking for a swift implementation. The DAP is wondering whether it remains a “trial balloon” or will it actually ever be implemented?

These are questions only Najib can answer.

He has opened both the economic congresses organised by Ibrahim’s Perkasa, which is hell-bent opposed to parts of the NEM, and that by MCA, which wants the reforms to ensure equity for all Malaysians, particularly the non-Bumiputeras.

Ibrahim today criticised both Nazir and MCA for what came out of the Chinese Economic Congress a day earlier, which unfortunately was not read by the Bumiputera demographic because Umno-owned and controlled newspaper Mingguan Malaysia and Berita Minggu did not deem fit to publish it as news.

The Umno president does himself no credit if those who argue for his policies do not get airtime or space in the Umno-owned press. Only voices that defend the NEP get heard and that will reinforce the community’s view that the out-dated policy should remain in place.

Nazir is right, the NEP has been bastardised beyond recognition of its founder Abdul Razak. He never had a chance to see how the NEP ever turned out.

Najib has a choice of seeing through the NEM but only if he defends and nurtures it despite criticisms that it won’t benefit one community. Like the early days of the NEP, the NEM must be seen to benefit all Malaysians for all time.

Otherwise, Najib will share a worse fate than his father. The NEM will be stillborn. Because no one, not even the man who thought of it, defended it before it can be implemented.

Does Najib want the NEM to be a pipe dream? Only he can determine its future.