The regression of Malaysian socioeconomic policy

The Malayan government, instead, formulated its socioeconomic policies on racial grounds, emphasizing state protection for the Malays and, consequently, marginalizing the non-Malays. This was in fact already evident when the post-independence Malayan government, as Gomez notes, had selectively intervened in private enterprises to alleviate the Malays from their state of poverty created during colonial rule. This chapter discusses the rise of the perception of legitimate rights, or one which was narrowly interpreted as bumiputera sentimentalism, among the Malay political elites in the 1970s and 1980s, and to what extent the socioeconomic position of non-Malay communities, specifically of the Chinese and Indians, were affected as a consequence. Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak (1970–1976) implemented the New Economic Policy (NEP, 1970–1990), a socioeconomic restructuring programme to correct economic imbalances among ethnic groups within two decades. The NEP not only to restructure employment in society, but also its structural ownership.