PPBM supreme council member Tariq Ismail said this in response to the question from Penang Umno delegate Shaik Hussein Mydin as to whether Muhyiddin was still “Malay first, Malaysian second” as he had declared when he was with Umno.

Tariq, who is the grandson of former deputy prime minister Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, said the main problem with Umno was its obsession with the past.

“That the DAP has accepted PPBM means they are putting behind what is past. But Umno likes to bring up history.

“We are looking forward to building the future, so we need to work on today, not yesterday,” he told FMT.

However, Tariq said, to move forward, Umno must stop feeding the people racially-charged rhetoric.

“The racial bogeyman must be stopped. They (Umno) are enslaving the Malay masses to become subservient. Racial supremacy is about subservience.”

Tariq also said Muhyiddin had not done anything wrong in saying he was “Malay first, Malaysian second”, as he was merely stating the obvious.

“Look, you can’t run away from the fact that you are Malay. Being Malay, you are Malaysian. There’s nothing racist about that.

“Umno has to come out from its cave and explore the world.”