But he prefers the label “reluctant politician” because he knows that politics in Malaysia can easily get dirty.
“I’m a reluctant politician as I distance myself from gutter politics,” the first-term MP recently told FMT.
The 61-year-old former Petronas engineer is Minister of Entrepreneur Development, a portfolio that the Barisan Nasional government suspended but which the current administration feels is important enough to revive.
Redzuan is also PPBM chief of Melaka state and is affectionately known as Pak Wan to people close to him.
He is proud of his kampung roots but is sad that many who grew up with him could not achieve what he could because opportunities then were limited. It was an English-medium education in a boarding school that gave him the edge over others from his background.
Redzuan went on to study engineering in Britain and came home to Malaysia to work in an American company.
Perhaps to drive home the point that he’s a reluctant politician, he said he had no big political ambitions and explained that this was why he could give his views frankly.
And he was frank indeed when he said Pakatan Harapan should get over the euphoria of its election victory and do something about its lack of Malay support.
He noted that most Malays gave their support to PAS and Umno in last May’s polls and said PH therefore had much work to do to woo the community.
“When we formed PPBM,” he said, “our aim was only to garner 30% of the support normally expected to be given to PAS and Umno. And we got that. We didn’t get comprehensive Malay support, but we met our target.”
However, he added, PPBM must now acknowledge its weaknesses and address them in order to increase its popularity.
When FMT interviewed him, Redzuan showed himself to be a man of ideas and someone who is in a hurry to execute the many plans he has for his ministry.
He is aware that most of his ministerial duties would involve Malays and Indians, who are seen as still struggling to make it in the business world although there are a few individuals among them who are billionaires.
He spoke of problems currently faced by many businesses, including disruptions caused by the rise of new technologies. He said this was why he would work to strengthen the e-commerce sector.
“E-commerce is the way forward in developing a business,” he said. “We must understand that we cannot run away from global competition. In a borderless world, every activity uses information technology.”
But he said there was still a lack of emphasis on research and development.
“R&D is about how to do things better, how to speed up the manufacturing process,” he said, pointing to Japan as a nation to emulate.
He also said he was working towards a plan to provide education and training to people in the small industries sector so that they could be important contributors to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
He believes education and training will help plug leakages, which will in turn help entrepreneurs achieve better growth.
Regarding small and medium enterprises, he disclosed that he planned to make improvements to the current action plan for them so that they could increase their contribution to the GDP from the current 36%.
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