Political party disowns document of 'grand plans' to overhaul Malay special rights

Malaysia's majority-Chinese Democratic Action Party (DAP) has dismissed allegations of a "grand plan" to remove the special rights of Malays, Islam and the constitutional monarchy. The image of a pamphlet circulating online detailing the purported policy changes is credited to a former member of the ruling coalition party who has in fact been sacked in 2011.

The photo of the purported DAP pamphlet was shared on March 8 in a Facebook group with more than 37,000 members.

The Malay-language pamphlet is titled "DAP's Grand Plan If It Takes Over Putrajaya", referring to the city that houses Malaysia's administrative centre.

"Fearless Expose by Mr Mohd Razali Bin Abd Rahman (Former Private Secretary to Penang DAP Deputy Chief, Usman Mansor)," reads the subhead.

This is followed by a list of actions the DAP would supposedly take if it became the country's ruling party, including removing Islam as the official religion, installing non-Malay heads of states and removing the Malay rulers who make up Malaysia's constitutional monarchy, among other policies.

The DAP is open to citizens of all races, though its elected leaders remain majority Chinese and its opponents frequently target it with allegations it is a racist party (archived link).

Last December, a Malaysian Islamic Party member of parliament was fined for making unfounded allegations linking DAP leaders to communist figures and Singapore's late prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (archived link).

Though ethnic Chinese make up approximately one-fifth of its 34 million population, the Southeast Asian country has also seen rising anti-Chinese sentiment in recent years as Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's administration has moved the country closer to Beijing. AFP has debunked other anti-Chinese claims (archived link).

Similar posts targeting the DAP and sharing the pamphlet spread on Facebook as well as on TikTok.

But the DAP's publicity secretary Teo Nie Ching dismissed the claims on March 13.

"If we had published such materials, I believe our leaders would have been arrested (by the authorities)," she told AFP.

She also confirmed a 2016 statement from the DAP clarifying the position of the individual named in the false posts, Mohd Razali, remains correct (archived link).

"Neither was Razali a staff in Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng's office, nor was he a special assistant of the CM in any capacity," the statement reads.

"Razali joined DAP in 2008 and was subsequently sacked in 2011."

Constitutional safeguards

Meanwhile, the so-called "grand plans" listed in the fabricated pamphlet would be highly unfeasible and unlikely to happen, a constitutional law expert told AFP.

"Most of the changes mentioned in the claims would require constitutional amendments, and constitutional amendments in general would require the 'votes of not less than two-thirds of the total number of members of that House' of Parliament," said Joshua Wu, a co-deputy chairperson of the Malaysian Bar Council's Constitutional Law Committee on March 14.

Wu added that some of the constitutional amendments would additionally require the consent of Malaysia's Conference of Rulers, the heads of nine of Malaysia's 13 states that are ruled by centuries-old Islamic royalty and who take turns as the country's king (archived link).

Additional constitutional safeguards against such a plan includes members of parliament from both the lower and upper houses, he said.

"Extreme changes, especially in a Malay-Muslim majority country, would likely result in voter rejection/backlash," he added.