Malaysians’ bumiputera-first policy debate takes on heady mix of health, education and politics

KUALA LUMPUR – The political heat generated over a proposal to temporarily allow non-bumiputeras into Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UiTM) for the first time has spotlighted the New Economic Policy (NEP), an affirmative action policy started 53 years ago following deadly race riots.

Malaysians are debating whether ethnic Chinese and Indian students should be allowed to enrol in the postgraduate cardiothoracic surgery programme of UiTM, a bumiputera-only institution, as a stopgap measure to reduce a shortage of such surgeons that has delayed heart and lung surgeries and resulted in some deaths.

The suggestion was made in April by cardiothoracic surgeon Raja Amin Raja Mokhtar, a professor from UiTM’s department of cardiovascular and thoracic surgery who is also president of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons of Malaysia.

This faced backlash from the university’s students and Malay politicians.

The heated debate has caught the administration of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in a bind, as his Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition was voted into power in November 2022 on a multi-racial platform.

Yet the government that espouses the so-called “Madani” concept – moderate, modern Islam – cannot afford to alienate the majority-Malay population that largely sees the NEP as sacrosanct and UiTM as a bastion of bumiputera education that must be protected.

Columnist Andrew Sia at the liberal Malaysiakini news website poured gasoline on the fire on May 22 by calling UiTM an “apartheid academy”, eliciting a police probe after at least 14 police reports were made against him.

Mr Sia’s column listed long-held complaints by ethnic minorities in the education sector, and concluded by saying: “The upheaval over Akademi Apartheid is just another symptom of our deep-seated racial problems. Will the Madani government have the courage to start fixing them?”

Responding the next day, Umno Youth secretary Hafiz Ariffin called on the police to investigate Mr Sia and Malaysiakini for “creating provocation and affecting racial harmony”. Umno is a member of the ruling coalition.

The Anwar administration in the end tried to douse the controversy by amending the Medical Act 1971, which will allow doctors who obtained specialist training abroad to register as medical specialists. The Bill is targeted to be tabled in the coming Parliament session in June.

At the heart of the debate is the 1971 economic policy Malaysians still widely refer to as the NEP, though it is now known as the New Economic Model after several name changes over the decades.

The affirmative programme was meant to raise educational and living standards of the bumiputeras, or sons of the soil: the Malays, Orang Asli and indigenous ethnic groups in Sabah and Sarawak.

Among the benefits for Malays and bumiputeras are reserved spots in public universities and government jobs.

Many Malaysian Malays still staunchly defend the NEP, believing that it remains the best way to improve their economic status. And commentators say it has succeeded in raising a confident, professional Malay class of doctors to bankers and lawyers, and vastly reduced poverty.

Retired top banker Nazir Razak told The Straits Times that one of NEP’s success stories is Malaysia’s near eradication of poverty, from 60 per cent in 1969 to 6 per cent in 2022.

“There’s no two ways about Malaysia’s success in eradicating poverty and the NEP was at the centre of it.

“In terms of the expansion of the middle class, no one can dispute the fact that the NEP has resulted in this massive expansion of the middle class and growth in Malay professionals,” added Tan Sri Nazir, 58, who led one of Malaysia’s biggest banks CIMB until 2014.

The NEP was launched by his father, Malaysia’s second prime minister Razak Hussein, following the 1969 race riots that killed hundreds of people and forever changed Malaysian politics.

The scheme was supposed to end in 1990 but was continued under the National Development Plan by Malaysia’s fourth prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who claimed that Malays were still left behind.

Critics of the half-century-old policy say the policy is behind Malaysia’s brain drain, as bright minority graduates and skilled workers leave as they feel they are second-class citizens.

Ethnic Chinese and Indians make up 22.6 per cent and 6.6 per cent of Malaysia’s 34 million population, respectively.

Official figures for 2022 say some 1.13 million Malaysians are based in Singapore – 61 per cent of the country’s entire diaspora – of whom just under 40 per cent are working in a job.

Given how the study, released in February 2024, found that 74 per cent of these employees are skilled or semi-skilled, the country’s authorities warned of the “adverse effects” of the brain drain as skilled workers leave the country.

Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam, who helped draft the original NEP when he was the head of the Treasury Economy Division under the Finance Ministry, told ST the policy had succeeded in achieving its goal only up till the 1990s.

“After the 1990s it was distorted or abused and left a lot of Malays still poor, and worse still, it left the poor Chinese and Indians relatively ignored. After 1990, it promoted elitists and cronies in gaining wealth and benefits instead of the poor,” said Mr Navaratnam, who is 89.

Retired University of Malaya professor of political economy Edmund Terence Gomez said that part of the original plan for the NEP was to educate the poor, particularly rural Malays, and ensure that they received good education in high-class schools. This led to the formation of special Malay boarding schools known as Maktab Rendah Sains Mara and UiTM.

But after Tun Dr Mahathir took over as premier in 1981, he began focusing on creating a Malay capitalist class and ignored the education aspect of the plan, said Dr Gomez.

Malaysians are debating whether ethnic Chinese and Indian students should be allowed to enrol in UiTM, a bumiputera-only institution. PHOTO: UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA

While critics see the NEP as promoting elite Malay cronies rather than boosting the living standards of poor bumiputeras, analysts do not believe Mr Anwar can change its course.

Dr Gomez said: “When PH was in the opposition, they talked about a colour-blind needs-based policy instead of affirmative action policies. But now when they are in power, no one has moved to do so because they fear losing electoral support.”

Singapore Institute of International Affairs senior fellow Oh Ei Sun told ST that Prime Minister Anwar’s ruling unity government cannot afford to alienate Malays, seeing that many in Malaysia’s majority community have already swung to the Perikatan Nasional opposition coalition.

“Any attempt to even slightly deviate from these practices would thus come with huge political costs such as sizeable losses in Malay votes.

“This is especially so now that the Anwar government is facing relentless political onslaught from the conservative Malays, so Anwar could ill afford to even inadvertently be perceived as detracting from Malay-exclusive affirmative actions,” said Dr Oh.