Ku Li tells why Malay support will remain elusive for Anwar

Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah says Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim will continue to suffer a deficit in Malay support as the base for his Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition is still the non-Malays.

"It (PH) is essentially Chinese, so how can the Malays rely on a leadership whose interests are not those of the Malays?" Razaleigh, better known as Ku Li, said in a recent interview with MalaysiaNow.

"Unless Anwar has a Malay base, the Malays will not support the PH that he leads."

He also compared Anwar to previous prime ministers whom he said had enjoyed the support of the Malays.

"The people supported Tunku Abdul Rahman because his core was Malay," Razaleigh said.

On Umno's current alliance with PH, he said it was fraught with risks. 

"If Umno wants to be with them (PH), there is only one way: sink. Does Umno want to sink?

"If you want to go another way, you have to think about what kind of alliance is acceptable to the people, especially when it comes to protecting the interests of the Malays," he said.

Several analysts have confirmed that Anwar's government does not have the support of the Malay majority, given the rise of Perikatan Nasional (PN) since the last general election as an alternative to Umno and Barisan Nasional (BN).

In that election, PH won 82 parliamentary seats, mostly in constituencies with large numbers of non-Malay voters, while the Malay vote was split between PN and BN.

PN won 74 seats while BN won 30.

A similar pattern was seen in the six state elections last year, where the Malay-majority seats went overwhelmingly to PN while the non-Malay seats provided solid support for PH. Umno won only 19 seats in total, its worst electoral performance ever.

'PM should not be finance minister'

Razaleigh, who served as finance minister under the Hussein Onn and Dr Mahathir Mohamad governments, said he did not agree with Anwar taking over the portfolio.

"The finance minister is the one who carries out the checks and balances. The administration's expenditure and so on is scrutinised by the finance minister," he said.

He said the finance minister was responsible for studying every action and decision of the prime minister for its financial implications, including negotiations abroad.

"If I were the finance minister and if he is involved in this or that negotiation, and say he is interested in one or two experts, that's all I would allow," he said. 

"Even though he is the PM, I would not allow more because it is a waste of public money. And that's more important than Anwar Ibrahim."