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Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah

ipoh | November 20, 2009 | 0 Comments

Recommendations to move people to change the way they choose political parties…READ MORE

Perak Academy recently invited Kelantan Prince and veteran UMNO politician Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah to speak at it’s Perak Lectures Series.
“Punctuality is the politeness of Kings” and in true royal style Ku Li, as he is more fondly addressed, arrived sharp on time at 8 p.m.
After being greeted by the guests upon his arrival, Tengku Razaleigh went over to the table of his old teacher from Anderson School, Dato’ Seri N.S. Selvamani to greet him before sitting at his own table.
Tengku Razaleigh’s political career began in the 60s. In the 1969 election he won the Kelantan Barat parliamentary seat and was appointed UMNO Vice President in 1975. He was also Malaysia’s Finance Minister during the time of Prime Minister Hussein Onn.

In the late 80s, Razaleigh, after a dispute with Dr Mahathir, started his own party called Semangat 46 or the Spirit of 46, 46 being the year that UMNO was formed. Interestingly Semangat 46 did forge an alliance with opposition parties DAP and PAS and others for the 8th Malaysia General Election in 1990. Semangat 46 lost and was subsequently disbanded in 1996 with Razaleigh rejoining UMNO.
Tengku Razaleigh is a true veteran politician, a product from the old colonial times, who had the opportunity of political experience from the old guard under Tunku Abdul Rahman.

The topic of his talk that night was ‘Malaysia: The Challenge of the Present’. In his speech, Razaleigh said that Constitutional Democracy as we knew it has strayed from its original intent. “Democracy is not a ready made political system once we have written a constitution…the Perak constitutional crisis is a forewarning and Malaysians are watching the yet unfinished journey in Perak.”
He averred that ‘national unity’ needs to be based on the ideals of the Rukun Negara and proposed 10 principles that political parties should aspire to have.

All political parties are required to include in their constitutional objectives the equality of citizenship as provided for in the Federal Constitution.

An economic and political policy that political parties propagate must not discriminate against any citizen.
All parties shall include and uphold constitutional democracy and the separation of powers as a fundamental principle.

It shall be the duty of all political parties to adhere to the objectives of public service and refrain from involvement in business, and ensure the separation of business from political parties.
It shall be the duty of all political parties to ensure and respect the independence of the judiciary and the judicial process.
All parties shall ensure that the party election system will adhere to the highest standards of conduct, and also ensure that the elections are free of corrupt practices. Legislation should be considered to provide funding of political parties.

It shall be the duty of all parties to ensure that all political dialogues and statements will not create racial or religious animosity.
All parties undertake not to use racial and communal agitation as political policies.

To remove and eradicate all barriers that hinder national unity and Malaysian identity.
To uphold the Federal and State Constitu-tions and its democratic intent and spirit, the Rule of Law, the fundamental liberties as enshrined in Part II of the Malaysian Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Interestingly, Razaleigh states that these 10 recommendations are not meant for the leaders. “We can’t change the leaders and it is difficult to sell ideas to them. I have tried before with UMNO. These recommendations are to move the people to change the way they choose their political parties. We made a change in 2008 and we can do it again before 2013. We don’t have to wait for the next GE.”
“Any party pursuing their objectives along racial lines should not be supported. We should get together to do something as we are a greater number”, he continued.

When questioned why he was still an Umno member, Tengku Razaleigh replied that UMNO had done a lot for the country. The UMNO leaders of the past like Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Dr Ismail, had always put the people first. Unfortunately it is not followed by today’s leaders who must buck up and behave.

Bearing in mind that the majority of the populace of Perak had voted for the opposition, the views expressed by Tengku Razaleigh, a veteran UMNO politician, was an assurance that there were some in UMNO that genuinely viewed Malaysia as a multi-ethnic country.
Hence based on what Tengku Razaleigh has stated it is now up to the Rakyat, to change the perception of the rest of its members.
JAMES GOUGH