Which Prime Minister mentioned “Bumiputeras” the least? We analyzed

Yesterday, we came across a clip of the Masjid Tanah MP, Mas Ermieyati Samsudin, who asked a burning, pertinent question in Parliament:

“Why was the word ‘Bumiputera’ only mentioned 6 times in Budget 2023?”

During Monday’s Dewan Rakyat session, she lamented that there seemed to be a lack of focus on the Bumiputera community when the Budget was announced last Friday, and despite the announcement being over 2 hours long, the word ‘Bumiputera’ was only mentioned 6 times. OMG, does that mean Anwar is neglecting the Bumiputera community?

That seems to be the prevailing opinion of some quarters as they previously accused Anwar to be a deep undercover agent for DAP who’s out to slow down the Bumiputeras and Malays. But to truly see whether that’s the case or not, we went through the Budget speeches from 2018 to 2022. It turns out…

 

Budget 2023 is one of the least Bumiputera Budgets in the past 6 years…

…if we only go by the ‘Bumiputera’ word count. After going through Budget speeches and doing some CTRL+F-ing, Anwar’s teks ucapan did have one of the least ‘Bumiputera’ counts, coming to a tie with Tun M’s Budget 2019. However, that’s probably because not all provisions that benefit the Bumiputera community in Budget 2023 contain the word ‘Bumiputera’.

Take these parts with MARA, Perbadanan Usahawan Nasional Berhad (PUNB), and TEKUN, for example:

Since those institutions cater exclusively (or almost exclusively) to the Bumiputera community, Anwar could’ve mentioned that their allocations were for the benefit of Bumiputera students and entrepreneurs and parked it under a segment header like ‘Agenda Bumiputera’ or ‘Pemerkasaan Bumiputera’. That’s how it was done in Budget 2020:

…and Budget 2022:

Perhaps our PM should’ve taken a page out of Najib’s Budget 2018 speech, and sprinkled in some stats about the community:

That alone might’ve upped the ‘Bumiputera’ word count in Budget 2023 by four or five. Then again, if we only go by word count…

 

What about ‘Cina’, ‘India’ and ‘Orang Asli’?

We also looked up the words ‘Cina’, ‘India’, and ‘Orang Asli’ (yeah, yeah, Orang Asli are part of the Bumiputera community, we know) in this year’s budget, and while there were zero mentions of ‘Cina’ and ‘India’, ‘Orang Asli’ got one hit:

What, people from these communities don’t pay tax meh? Okaylah, we’re just being petty at this point. Apologies.

In all seriousness, this is a petty topic in itself, and the word count for any ethnicity shouldn’t really matter at all, cuz the national budget should benefit all Malaysians regardless of ethnicity. What really matters is whether the money is going to crucial areas like boosting the economy or improving public infrastructure. Takkan la Anwar wanna do this for Budget 2024: