Parti Rakyat Malaysia

Founded on 11 November 1955 as Partai Ra'ayat, it is one of the older political parties in Malaysia and traces its pedigree to the anti-colonial movements from the pre World War II period like the Kesatuan Melayu Muda.Race and politics The founder of PRM, Ahmad Boestamam, was an activist of the leftist Kesatuan Melayu Muda (Young Malays Union; KMM).This proposal was opposed by a large segment of the non-Malay population of the country who saw it as discriminatory as well as a sizeable portion of the nationalists who saw it as delaying the self-determination and independence of Malaya.The PUTERA-AMCJA also launched a successful nationwide hartal was organised on 20 October 1947, the same date where the constitutional proposals were due to be deliberated by the House of Commons in London.The new party was inaugurated on 11 November 1955 embracing a philosophy of nationalistic social democracy focussing on the poor known as Marhaenism, a phrase coined by Sukarno.Both these branches eventually disappeared from active politics by the mid 1960s with the PRB banned in 1962 as a result of the Brunei revolt and the PRS never gaining enough support in Singapore for electoral success, with its president Said Zahari being arrested under Operation Coldstore before the 1963 Singaporean general election.[18] Tunku Abdul Rahman's announcement for the expansion of Malaya into a larger federation known as Malaysia in 1961 galvanised the co-operation between the various Opposition parties in the Parliament.Its final victories as an electoral force were in the 1969 elections when PSRM won two state seats in Pahang through Dzulkifli Ismail (Ulu Kuantan) and S. Sivasubramaniam (Tanah Puteh) and one in Penang through Abdul Rahman Yunus (Balik Pulau).PRM also gained an influx of younger members from the interest and political consciousness generated by the Reformasi movement during this period which rejuvenated the youth wing of the party.In April 2005, the dissidents convened a National Congress in Johor Bahru, taking advantage of the fact that the party had yet to be de-registered by the authorities, and elected a new executive committee led by former PRM youth leader Hassan Abdul Karim.Another notable figure who made the move from PRM to PKR was Sivarasa Rasiah who was a three-term MP from 2008 to 2022 and served as deputy minister for rural development from 2018 to 2020.In the lead-up to the 2018 general election, the party was joined by former DAP assemblywoman for Teratai, Jenice Lee Ying Ha, and former Kapar MP, S. Manikavasagam who had previously represented PKR.It claimed both the ruling unity government and Perikatan Nasional committed corruption and theft and accused both uniracial and multiracial parties of playing divisive politics on racial and religious grounds.However, Rohana later clarified that the Registrar of Socities (RoS) did not recognise the EGM and that the committee led by Ahmad Jufliz and Koh remained the legitimate one until the party’s next AGM.