PAS secretary-general Kamaruddin Jaafar has appealed for calm among the Malay community today in the wake of protests organised by Umno.

kamaruddin jaafar “We are calling for calm and for everyone to be responsible. We call on Umno leadership not to instigate unruly behaviour or fan racial hatred,” he said.

However, he said that PAS respects the right of Malaysians to peaceful assembly.

penang komtar umno protest 140308 very angry About 1,000 Umno supporters held a one-hour protest outside the Komtar building which houses the Penang state government office this afternoon.

They were protesting against Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng’s statement that he would to do away with the New Economic Policy (NEP), an affirmative policy which favours the country’s bumiputeras.

Kamaruddin suggested that the DAP-led government in Penang to initiate dialogues and discussions with the local Malays.

“We find in NEP the good and ugly aspects but as for PAS, we certainly be emphasising the welfare state as advocated in our (election) manifesto,” said Kamaruddin, who is also Tumpat MP.

He urged all parties not to look at the issue from an emotional angle when asked to comment on the possibility of more rallies being held against the DAP in the coming days.

Open-tender system

On Tuesday, soon after being sworn in as chief minister, Lim said that it replaced NEP in favour of non-racially-based policies.

“We will run the government administration free from the NEP that breeds cronyism, corruption and systematic inefficiency,” he said.

“We will implement an open-tender system for all government procurement and contracts. We will also practise transparency by uploading information of such tender bids in an Internet portal to be set up in future for public access.”

Meanwhile, about 100 people believed to be Umno members and supporters held a protest march in Shah Alam against the new PKR-led Selangor government.

Marching from the Shah Alam state mosque to the state government building a couple of hundred meters away, they carried placards and banners denouncing PKR and its allegedly ‘anti-Malay’ allies.

Written on the banners were, ‘New Selangor government: Puppets of DAP’ and ‘With the abolition of the NEP, Malays will be refugees on their own land’.