The former director of communications at the finance ministry said he wanted Umno to be a strong opposition, especially after veteran journalist A Kadir Jasin made public the alleged expenditure of the palace.
“It was a clear conspiracy to create hatred towards the sultans.
“Despite this, none of the Malay youths came to defend the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.
“Even when Tommy Thomas was appointed as the attorney-general, I did not see any youth movement making a stand to defend the Agong,” he told FMT at the Umno headquarters here.
Because of this, he said, he wished to contest the Umno Youth post to defend the rights of the Malays which he claimed were not being properly protected.
He also disagreed with the suggestion by current Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin to turn Umno into a multiracial party.
“We have PKR, Gerakan, MyPPP and others. Umno should remain a Malay party.
“We cannot be seen as being as tolerant as before. Before this, we tried to please other races by giving them so many things but we could not get their support.
“When we loosened up during Najib Razak’s era, a lot of Malays saw that he was not protecting the rights of Malays enough.
“My position now is, if possible, Umno must get back to protecting the Malays, Islam, country and the King, while collaborating with multiracial parties.”
Lokman said the population of Malays was increasing while the population of the Chinese was on the decline.
“This means that in the long run, if we stick to our core target group, we will at least have half of the support from the Malays.”
Umno would then have strong bargaining power and could work together with PKR, Warisan and PAS, he added.
He said even though Umno splinter party PPBM was a Malay party, it was considered weak as it had won only 12 seats in the May 9 election and could fail to protect the rights of the Malays.
“PPBM is being used by DAP and PKR to make sure their liberal agenda is carried out,” he added.
Lokman said although Malaysia was a Muslim-majority country, there were still complaints when funds were used for tahfiz schools. Now, he said, there were even efforts to review the role of the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim).
“Privileges at Universiti Teknologi Mara and Felda are also under threat.”
He accused the present government of spewing lies about Felda, saying there had also been “brazen fabrications” about 1MDB and the RM2.6 billion deposited in the bank accounts of former prime minister Najib Razak. Najib has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
On May 18, National Felda Settlers’ Children’s Association president Mazlan Aliman had urged the government to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate scandals linked to Felda.
Mazlan said he had submitted a 46-page report of his feedback and views during a meeting with the Council of Eminent Persons.
Lokman said Umno must make sure the special privileges of the Malays were protected.
He said this included giving enough opportunities to Class F contractors. Malays have been unable to get jobs in the private sector as “some advertisements required Chinese-speaking Chinese”, he added.