Ahmad Boestaman

Abdullah Thani bin Raja Kechi (30 November 1920 – 19 January 1983), commonly known as Ahmad Boestamam, was a Malaysian freedom fighter and politician. He was the founding president of Parti Rakyat Malaysia and Parti Marhaen Malaysia and former chairman of the Malaysian Social Justice Party. He was an editor and reporter for several newspapers and took a pen-name honouring Indian freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose. He was elected a member of parliament for Setapak in Malaysia' first post-independence elections in 1959, and served lengthy spells as a political prisoner.

Early life

Ahmad Boestamam was born in Setapak, Ampang, Kuala Lumpur (then part of Selangor) to ethnic Malay parents of Minangkabau origin who originally came from Tanah Datar, West Sumatra. He was raised in Tanjung Malim, Perak.

PKMM, in turn, led Pusat Tenaga Rakyat or Putera to join the All Malayan Council of Joint Action (AMCJA), which was then led by the Malayan Democratic Union (MDU), which was involved in drafting an alternative constitution to the document that eventually formed the basis of the Federation of Malaya.

Election as MP

Soon after his release in 1955, he set up the Partai Rakyat Malaya with other independent fighters on 11 November 1955. Inspired by the anti-colonial and socialist struggle in Indonesia led by Sukarno, the party in its formative years subscribed to a pan-Malay/Indonesian nationalism. Unlike its contemporary UMNO (which ruled the country uninterrupted from independence until 2018), Parti Rakyat demanded total independence from British colonialism.

In the 1959 elections he contested and won the Setepak parliamentary seat. In a three-way contest, he defeated Aishah Ghani of UMNO/Alliance and independent Yap Kim Swee, winning the seat by a margin of 2,096 votes.

In 1963, soon after the outbreak of the Konfrontasi between Malaysia and Indonesia, the Alliance government began massive round-ups of left-wing politicians and activists among the opposition.

He managed to contest the Langat seat in Selangor in the 1964 elections but lost heavily to Umno's Zakaria Mohd Taib.

He was among those arrested and detained in the mid 1960s, alongside Ishak Haji Muhammad, Abdul Aziz Ishak, Kampo Radjo, V. David, Tan Kai Hee, Tan Hock Hin, M.K. Rajakumar, Karam Singh Veeriah, Hasnul Hadi, Tajuddin Kahar and hundreds of others.

The Socialist Front eventually dissolved under strong state repression and local council elections were abolished.

Parti Rakyat became a fringe party in parliamentary politics and following his release from detention, Boestamam was removed as party leader by a group led by Kassim Ahmad.

He then merged Parti Marhaen into Pekemas but that party also floundered, winning only one seat in the 1974 elections. He took over the Pekemas party presidency from Tan Chee Khoon but left soon after.

Legacy Boestamam's son, Rustam Sani would later become the deputy president of the party his father founded.

Ahmad Boestaman died on 19 January 1983. |Year |Constituency

|Votes |Pct

|Votes |Pct |Ballots cast |Majority |Turnout

| (UMNO)

21.37%

| Yao Kim Swee (IND)

Honours

Namesakes A school in Sitiawan, Perak was named after him. Ahmad Boestamam National Secondary School