It is with this group that unfair voter weightage and gerrymandering benefit the most, and indeed Abdul Hadi Awang has said on various campaign stumps over the years that rigging the system would benefit them (PAS) the most.

Not only does grand poobah Anwar Ibrahim need a bumiputera agenda, but what he and his team need to do is base it on a class dialectic.

We are getting some of that now, with Anwar going after monopolies that only benefit the political elites. This is all part of the feudalistic mindset that Umno created over the years and the reason some folks, certainly in PN, are getting flustered. They want the system to endure.

Indeed what has hampered the Malay community, especially those marginalised and rural, are not the policies themselves (which is a whole other debate) but rather the corruption and mismanagement that has put them in a situation where their economic fears become their racial and religious fears.

This happens when your existence is based on how directly the state can influence your life.

Vicious cycle

Indeed former prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has admitted that all those poverty alleviation programmes were carried out by the vast bureaucracy and nobody had any idea about their effectiveness – “… that hitherto many ministries had programmes on poverty alleviation but there was no specific monitoring on their effectiveness.” 

Not because monitoring these programmes would mean there would be transparency, but because many of these poverty alleviation programmes were part of the gravy train driven by bureaucrats, political operatives and their various proxies.

The non-Malays on the other hand, having left to fend for themselves, have opened up economic, educational and social spheres in which connective tissue has allowed the state to sustain a kleptocracy that has endured for decades.

This too is a vicious cycle but one that can only be broken when Harapan has the Malay support it needs to reform the system.

This brings us to the question of “compromises”. Non-Malays have to figure out what exactly these compromises are. Accessibility to state-funded education programmes, economic enterprises and a plethora of issues crop up whenever we have these types of discussions.

Not to mention personal and civil liberties, which the theocratic state is waiting to destroy.

Reforms of state institutions that minimise corruption and deregulation which minimises cronyism are some things we can all agree with and, perhaps, the most economically viable way to sway the Malay public option. This is why PAS, in particular, wants this to be about a culture war.

And the culture war is where it's at and where Anwar’s bumiputera agenda will be severely tested. This means reforming the vast religious bureaucracy.

Look beyond the corruption, leakages and wasteful mismanagement of funds. What this ministry does is subvert democratic principles in the name of religious solidarity. And of course, there is wastage and corruption.

Again, remember what Ismail Sabri said - “Yet, another day, perhaps the religious council will bring zakat relief for the village again, and train the people again. But no one is monitoring. No one shows the way. (The visitors) give courses, give goods, and then leave... in the end everything is a failure. The project fails because there is no specific monitoring.”

Hence all this talk of poverty alleviation, especially when it comes to the Malay community, is mired in the kind of corruption that plagues the mainstream political establishment.

Remember what Jeyakumar has said - "If you stop affirmative action for the rich Malays, even the poor Malays would accept it."

If Anwar defines his bumiputera agenda as a class-based agenda (dissonant as it sounds) and reforms the system, aid actually goes to the majority, especially the disenfranchised as opposed to the elites, and this would be the start of cultivating a base, and more importantly, less compromising in the name of unity.

The big question is, can Anwar craft a bumi agenda which will not spook the non-Malays?