At a press conference at Kelab Sultan Sulaiman in Kampung Baru today, the former Perkasa president said Putra would use the symbol of the “tanjak”, the Malay traditional headgear.
The former Pasir Mas MP said he established the party following calls from various parties who weren’t satisfied with the way the country was being run.
“For the past few months, Khalid and I have been invited by many, be it stalwarts of certain parties, academic icons, NGOs and youth groups, who shared their sentiments with us about the situation in the country.
“So after getting feedback and hearing their calls, we decided to set up a new party to defend Bumiputeras, who are now in a messy situation.”
Ibrahim became MP for Pasir Mas with the support of PAS in 2008. He later formed his own platform, Perkasa, hoping to speak out against perceived threats to Malay political power in the wake of Umno’s defeat in several states that year.
He has since strongly opposed the PH coalition and distanced his group from Umno in the wake of allegations linked to former prime minister Najib Razak over 1MDB.
Ibrahim, who is more fondly known as “Tok Him”, said Putra was open only to Malay-Muslims and Bumiputeras.
He added that although he wasn’t aiming for Putra to have many members, he wanted all state constituencies to have around 500 members and said even Mat Rempits could become division heads.
“In Putra, at the grassroots level, we want the leadership to come from the oppressed.
“This means, division chiefs can also be those operating coffee shops, fishermen, farmers, trishaw riders and even Mat Rempit.”
Ibrahim, who served as a deputy minister under Dr Mahathir Mohamad during his first tenure as prime minister, is known by the monicker “katak” because of his changing political platforms.
He left Umno to join the breakaway Semangat 46, before coming back to the party’s fold. He later left Umno again and stood for election as an independent candidate.
In the run-up to the 14th general election, he was chided by Mahathir for planning to run candidates endorsed by Perkasa.
Ibrahim himself lost badly in the May 9 polls when he stood for the Pasir Mas seat, obtaining only 5,300 votes against rivals Ahmad Fadhli Shaari of PAS, who got 28,080 votes, and Nor Azmawi Ab Rahman of BN, who got 15,005 votes.