The government needs to focus on allaying the fears of the working class before looking to ratify the International Convention of the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (Icerd), said PSM national chairperson Mohd Nasir Hashim.

"PSM strongly feels that the biggest challenge to the Pakatan Harapan government is to allay fears amongst the majority Malays that their special privileges would be undermined when the Icerd is signed.

"It is wrong to assume that the concerns against Icerd are solely raised by right-wing Umno and PAS leaders seeking political mileage.

"These are also the real fears of the ‘working-class’ Malays - farmers, smallholders, workers, small businessmen, lower level government employees - who, after 61 years of race-based policies, feel that they are still left out of the economic progress of the country," Mohd Nasir said in a statement today.

These 61 years of Umno/BN's race-based policies have widened income disparity within the Malays, as it only enriched the top 20 percent of the Malay community, he said.

Thus, working-class Malays who struggle economically may feel like they can still fall back on their special privileges, he said.

That is why, he said, they fear that Icerd may challenge and take away these privileges of theirs.

"PSM believes that the way forward for Malaysia is to eliminate all forms of discrimination based on race, but there must be affirmative action based on class.

"A social inclusion agenda which is truly colour blind will truly solve the socio-economic disparities in society and weed out the Malay rentier class who has benefited all these years through Umno-style race-based policies," he said.

Back in 2014, he said, PSM's former Sungai Siput MP Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj had submitted a motion to the Dewan Rakyat to table a Private Member's Bill entitled the Social Inclusion Act (SIA).

Though it was shot down by the then-Speaker, Mohd Nasir said the act was meant to focus on long-term solutions to create a socially just and inclusive society by addressing the root causes of poverty and marginalisation in a non-partisan and non-racial manner.

"The Pakatan government has to ensure that it does not repeat the mistakes of Umno/BN's race-based policies which only succeeded in increasing the class disparity amongst the majority Malays.

"PSM suggests that Harapan has to go down to the ground to the grassroots level amongst the working class, farmers, tappers, smallholders and petty traders to gain their confidence that class-based affirmative action will be continued to assist them in a more targeted and effective manner," he said.

Once these plans are implemented and are proven to be effective, Mohd Nasir say the public will see the fallacy of race-based policies.

This, he said, is a more solid plan to truly carve a path towards social inclusion, instead of ratifying Icerd, as there are many nations that sign the convention but never bother to take any measures to stop racial discrimination.