THE People’s Progressive Party (MyPPP) party will leave it to its delegates to decide if it should remain with Barisan Nasional (BN) or step out on its own. 

The 71-year-old MyPPP has about 320,000 members and some 2,000 delegates will vote in a referendum in Kuala Lumpur on September 1 to decide the future course of the party. 

MyPPP was founded in Ipoh, Perak in 1953 as an opposition multi-racial party.  

Its acting president Loga Bala Mohan said while most of the party’s members are Indians, the party also had a sizable number of Malays, Chinese, and other races. 

While it may not have any electoral seats, MyPPP boasted of strong grassroots in urban centres with up to 500,000 members at one time. 

It was also proposed that MyPPP merge with Gerakan, another BN component at that time. 

The referendum was mooted when BN president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi made reference to MyPPP as just a friend of the coalition instead of a full-fledged member, said Loga Bala. 

“This irks us as we have never left the coalition since joining in 1973,” he said after opening the Kedah MyPPP annual conference at the Gandhi Hall in Sungai Petani. 

He stressed that MyPPP remained in BN even in 2018 when then-party president M. Kayveas decided to take the party out after losing to Pakatan Harapan (PH) in the general election.

“We had battled Kayveas through legal channels as the party broke into two factions. One wanted out and the other wanted to remain in BN.” 

Technically, the court had ruled in favour of the BN faction and so MyPPP was legally a part of the coalition, which was now back in power through Umno in the national unity government of PH, said Loga Balan. 

He said MyPPP never wavered from its commitment to BN even though the coalition had been through a lot of challenges. 

Its experience helped BN win the recent Nenggiri by-election in Gua Musang, Kelantan despite BN being the underdog from the start, he added. 

Loga Bala, however, said the party was disappointed with Zahid’s view of the party in labelling it as a friend (associate member) of BN when it was a full-fledged member of the coalition. 

BN now has Umno, MCA, MIC, and PBRS of Sarawak, while MyPPP is supposed to be restored as the fifth member after the court ruled in its favour. 

Loga Bala said MyPPP could play a role in mainstream politics despite its absence for the past six years due to the legal wrangle with Kayveas. 

“We see a role in helping mitigate the plight of the Indians, who find themselves again at a deficit end, as their present political representation has not met the community’s high expectations. We can perhaps help in this area since we have many Indian leaders,” he added. – August 22, 2024.