An MCA leader has urged Umno to review and change its political game plan in view of how Dr Mahathir Mohamad has changed his.

"If Mahathir can be Machiavellian enough to re-embrace Anwar Ibrahim in a game changer, why not Umno?" asked central committee member Ti Lian Ker in a media statement.

"Gone were the days where Umno can step or pick on minorities to display their strength and as a clarion call for Malays or Muslims to unite or stay together against the others," he said.

Ti, who also heads MCA’s religious harmony bureau, said the scare-tactic of "the Chinese are coming; the Malays are under siege; our Islamic faith is being threatened, etc" is no longer effective to unite or force the Malays to stay together.

Furthermore, he argued, the Malays no longer fall for this and have now stepped out of the racial or religious barricades to trap them.

"The Malays are stronger and can no longer be cowed into succumbing or falling into or under the Umno political umbrella to protect them.

"Their insecurity complex can no longer be exploited to give in or surrender their fate or livelihood completely up to Umno’s call," he said.

Malays gaining confidence and self-esteem

Instead of caving in to these fear tactics, Ti said the Malays are now gaining confidence and self-esteem that allow them to think out of the old political or feudalistic mindset.

"Gone are the dependency syndrome or the 'jiwa hamba' or 'tak kan Melayu hilang' political psyche of the past.

"On the contrary, the issues played up such as 'Kalimah Allah', verbal attacks on vernacular schools, questioning the freedom of worship or locations of temples, churches, etc, have failed to gather or unite the Malays of today.

"Many Malays no longer fall for these political games of victimisation and some have openly disagreed with these racial religious games," he added.

Ti said instead of producing the desired result of uniting the Malays, these issues were proven to be counter-productive and had inadvertently united the Christians, Indians, Chinese into taking an "anti-Umno" stand.

Therefore, he added, "strategies of old" must be halted by Umno.