Another Communal Party Enters The Fray

October 8th, 2007 gier Posted in Politics | No Comments »

Over at Malaysia’s bestest online comic, Malaysiakini, comes the news that Dato’ S. Nallakarupan has just started a new party, the Malaysian Indian United Party (MIUP)[1]. According to the report, Nallakarupan formed MIUP because he realised that “(PKR) has marginalised the Indian community.” As regular readers of Mentera (all seven of you) would know, Dato’ Nalla was once a member of PKR and left in a huff after he was overlooked from being the party’s candidate at the Ijok by-election in favour of Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim (not that it mattered, because PKR got whupped). Apparently, Nalla had also brought 10,000 Indian members into PKR before he bogged off.

At the press conference, which was attended by some 100 people, Nalla announced that MIUP was registered on the 14th of September, and now has 100 members. I’m sure one can appreciate the symmetry there. Further, he stated that he will gather 3,000 to 4,000 members next month, rising to 20,000 members in 3 to 4 months time. Well, if he had brought 10,000 members into PKR, it should not be a problem to pull them out and insert them into MIUP, so that would leave him with just another 10,000 people to gather up.

With regards to the leadership of the party, Nalla had this to say:

“… I will be the party president and I have identified a team of capable leaders who will help me run it.”

No mention of an election there, one notes. It seems that Nalla has figured out the fastest way to become president of a political party — start one yourself.

The raison d’etre of the party “will be to ‘bring up’ the Indian community which is lagging in economic, political and social development.”

It seems that Nalla, as so many others in this racially blighted country of ours figure that the first order of priority is to save one’s race first, where after that is done, presumably the next order of business is to get one’s race to be dominant. In this, I have to agree with Gerakan’s Acting President, Dr Koh Tsu Koon, who said that “Playing too much racial politics will destroy us“. The man has a point, even if he is from Gerakan.

Finally, I note with amusement that the first paragraph in the Malaysiakini began with:

S Nallakarupan, who achieved fame as Anwar Ibrahim’s former tennis partner, today announced that he has formed a new Indian political party.

That’s right, Nalla’s first claim to fame was that he played tennis with Anwar …

[1] I assume MIUP is pronounced Mee-Yoop. A better name would be the Malaysian Indian Solidarity United Party, MISUP.