The founding of Umno and BN has been based on an arrangement that has been mutually beneficial and giving the non-Malays the opportunity to be heard as well, says Umno treasurer Salleh Said Keruak.

Salleh, who is also communications and multimedia minister, said only Umno and BN could imbue the spirit of equitability while the rest were only good at talking but not able to implement things.

“To achieve an arrangement regarded as mutually beneficial, firstly it required consensus among the Malays, and that was how Umno was established and which was initially a coalition of various associations, organisations and movements from throughout the country,” he said in his blog posting today.

Salleh said when Umno was set up, its leaders set down together with the Chinese, Indian and other community leaders to form a coalition known as the Alliance party.

“It was this coalition that negotiated with the British (colonial authority) to obtain independence and the gist of the independence agreement, among others, was on the issue of citizenship for the non-Malay residents which consequently saw the Malay majority reduced to around 50 percent of the whole populace,” he noted.

Salleh said this was a big or apt sacrifice on the part of the Malays to show to the non-Malay communities that they were equal partners in the struggle for independence.

“Unlike in most other Asian countries, the fight for independence in Malaysia (Malaya then) was peaceful, with no bloodshed and which took 11 years of negotiations from 1946 to 1957, while Umno ensured that the negotiations not only involved the Malay (leaders) but also those from the Chinese, Indian and other ethnic groups,” he said.

Salleh said Umno had existed for 71 years now and the Alliance Party, now called Barisan Nasional, for 65 years, while there was very little sharing of power elsewhere in the world unlike what Malaysia had achieved.

“This has made Malaysia into what we see today,” he added.

- Bernama