Practising moderation does not mean an endorsement for liberalism or pluralism, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak stressed.

In an interview published in Mingguan Malaysia today, Najib said that some quarters “do not understand” or “purposely do not understand” his moderate stance.

“Being moderate doesn’t mean we support liberalism or pluralism,” he said.

“Anything we do must be based on Islamic tenets,” he added.

He also described Umno as a “centrist” party and said that there is no need to change Umno’s direction as it had always been in such a way.

“Umno agreed to formulate a constitution that was based on the social contract as a compromise for all the races until there were Chinese schools and such. We had practised the wassatiyah concept since those days,” he said.

“Just that, back then, we did not call it as wassatiyah. We had based on the constitution which is moderate in nature. There is no need to change the course now because this had been decided from then itself,” he added.