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The Menteri Besar Datoh Panglima Bukit Gantang Wahab With Perak State Secretariat, Ipoh
This photograph from the Aziz Zakaria collection shows the Perak Menteri Besar Datoh Panglima Bukit Gantang Abdul Wahab (seated centre) with the Perak State Secretariat.
Abdul Wahab bin Toh Muda Abdul Aziz was born in 1905. He graduated in law from Inner Temple, England, and chambered for six months with a well-known lawyer in Ipoh. Then, he opened his own practice in 1931, at 21 Hale Street, Ipoh. He started the Perak Malay Driver's Union in 1930 and the Ipoh Malay Sports Club.
He was made the Datoh Panglima Bukit Gantang in 1936 and founded the Perak Malay Association on 18 September 1937, the first state-level Malay organisation founded in the Malay States. In January 1946, Datoh Panglima Bukit Gantang and other prominent Perak Malays set up the Perak Malay League, with branches all over Perak. In a few months they had over 30,000 members. He was made the first secretary-general of United Malay National Organisation (UMNO), which was founded on 11 May 1946, while the Perak Malay League refashioned itself as UMNO Perak State branch.
With the inauguration of the Federation of Malaya in February 1948, Datoh Panglima Bukit Gantang was made the first Chief Minister (Menteri Besar) of Perak, the same year Sultan Yusuff (reigned 1948-1963) succeeded Sultan Abdul Aziz as Sultan of Perak.
In 1952, UMNO and MCA began to discuss a national alliance between the two communal parties which led to an Alliance success in the Kuala Lumpur municipal elections.
As the chairman of UMNO Perak, Abdul Wahab was opposed to the policies of UMNO central executive committee. He held secret meetings in February 1953 hoping to attract the cream of Perak UMNO and Perak MCA, to join his new party, the National Association of Perak (NAP). His actions caused his expulsion from UMNO. Dato Panglima Bukit Gantang Abdul Wahab resigned as the Menteri Besar of Perak on the 30 August 1957. He passed away in 1959.
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