Badruddin Amiruldin gets his way!

It’s official. The NEP will continue until at least 2020 when it’s hoped that Malays will achieved a 30% share of the nation's whatever. If it is not achieved by then, the NEP will not be removed. I wonder how the 30% is measured?

Just as a reminder this was what Prime Minister Ahmad Abdullah Badawi said in his maiden speech to the UMNO general assembly in 2004: "Let's not use the crutches for support all the time, the knee will become weak".

But at the same assembly, UMNO ethnic hero Badruddin Amiruldin gave his infamous hornet's nest threat, "No other race has the right to question our privileges, our religion and our leader".

He warned that taking away Malays' privileges would be akin to stirring up a hornet's nest with terrible consequence. Just in case the wannabe nest stirrer didn't understand the dangers of depriving him and mates from the institutionalised ethnic-based special privileges, he waved a book about the May 13 racial riots (in 1969), where the Chinese in Kuala Lumpur were taught a severe lesson of how terrifying racial rioting could be.

Looks like Badawi's concept of Towering Malays have been abandoned, just as AB Sulaiman predicted - I blogged on Sulaiman's article in AB Sulaiman Pissing into the Wind?

Very few people would be surprised that the NEP continues. It would have to be a very brave or resolute Prime Minister who dares to remove a fully subsidized and privileged welfare system for the Malays.