KUALA LUMPUR, SAT: Oct 11, 2008
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi today proposed the establishment of a Barisan Nasional (BN) Club that would allow direct membership for those who were not keen to join any of the ruling coalition's component parties.
Abdullah, who is also BN chairman, said the club would serve as a platform for Malaysians to interact and forge better ties with the leaders.
He said the idea was conceived after interacting with the grassroots, who supported the ruling coalition but did not want to join political parties due to some dissatisfaction with some of the component parties.
“It is an idea... and something that you must think about. There are many who support the BN and want to be closer to the BN and should have the opportunity to interact with the leaders. They have been saying that BN should do this and do that.
“I sense that they want an opportunity to be closer to us,” he told reporters after opening Gerakan's 37th national delegates conference at Menara PGRM here.
When asked if the proposal is the first step towards forming a single BN multi-racial party, the prime minister instead called it an idea worth trying.
“I do not want to say that. What is to be developed in the future for anyone, for the future generations, we do not know what will happen in the future,” he said.
He said the BN must be bold in experimenting with changes like this, if it could make the rakyat (people) happy.
“We do not know. Maybe people want changes or to remain as we are. We don't know. But we must try,” he said, adding that the details of the BN club would be delved into at a later stage.
Abdullah also dismissed any assumption that his proposal was due to the purported failure of some of the multi-racial component parties such as Gerakan and the Peoples Progressive Party to live up to their reputation of being multi-racial.
He said it would depend truly on the peoples choice as no one could be forced to join a certain political party, whether it was communal or otherwise.
“What happens today is interaction and individual options. It depends on the people’s thinking. Of importance is for us to have integration in terms of thinking and feelings because Malaysia is our country.
“The Malaysian race must live in peace have respect for one another to maintain stability so that we can manage the task of developing the country,” he said.
Meanwhile, Abdullah denied that the BN has sidelined its partners.
“That’s not true, it's only an assumption,” he said when asked to comment on a statement by Wanita Gerakan chief Datuk Tan Lian Hoe yesterday that Gerakan was under Umno’s thumb.
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