By Hidayah Sahrunizam
GOMBAK, 19 October 2019: To understand the idea of political centrism, people need only to differentiate between the liberalist and the conservative, the first Hardtalk series by Wawasan Club on “Political Centrism” was told on Thursday (17 October).
The talk, held at Richiamo Coffee in Gombak campus here, featured guest speaker Shahril Hamdan, the former Deputy Chairman of United Kingdom and Eire Council (UKEC) who is also currently the UMNO Youth Vice-Chief.
Shahril said: “Normally, the liberalist will be more concerned with social justice or economic inequality. While the conservative believes that only free market can solve all related problems, which means they do not like the interference from the government.”
“The centrist can be defined as a political outlook that stays in between the liberalist and conservative.”
“I did not say that we need to change the Federal constitution or to change the system of capitalism. I believe that capitalism is approachable, however, in order to be fair, we still need government intervention in certain situations,” Shahril stressed.
He further noted that political centrism is the best political stance for the people because Malaysians live among multiple races and religions. “Hence, being fair towards each religion and races would not eliminate anyone.”
The programme manager, Muhammad Syafiq Samry, told IIUMToday that the objective of the programme was to create a platform to revive a forgotten concept in Malaysia’s social and political spectrum.
Mohammad Syafiq expressed the hope that there will be more installations of this hard talk series in the future. ***