MALAYSIA’S affirmative action, with policies that are pro-Bumiputeras, is creating a culture of entitlement and dependency, The Economist said in an op-ed piece and an article titled Malays on the march.

Fifty years of racially discriminatory policies with schemes favouring Malays, once deemed essential to improve their lot, are today widely seen as helping the wealthiest Bumiputeras.

“Yet affirmative action persists because it is a reliable vote-winner for Umno,” said the newspaper.

The 14^th general election (GE14) must be held by August 2018 and Umno, the lead party in the Barisan Nasional coalition, is launching a “fresh batch of race-based giveaways”.

BN, particularly Najib, is also trying to distract attention from accusations that billions were stolen from 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), a state-owned entity.

Instead of tackling the allegations surrounding 1MDB, The Economist said, Umno “is trying to preserve support among Malay voters by reinforcing pro-Malay policies and by building bridges with PAS”.

Last month, Prime Minister Najib Razak launched the Bumiputera Economic Transformation Road map (BETR) 2.0, which intends to channel more government contracts to Bumiputera businesses.

The paper pointed out that since pro-Bumiputera schemes are almost never means-tested, so their benefits have accrued to already wealthy urbanites, allowing poverty among the neediest Malays to persist.

The Najib administration admitted in a paper published in 2010 that affirmative action had created an “entitlement culture and rentier behaviour” and was mulling reforms to race-based policies to lift the bottom 40% of households, regardless of ethnicity, out of poverty. – May 19, 2017.