MCA: Ali Rustam an icon of a sore loser

MCA vice-president Gan Ping Sieu has criticised Umno vice-president aspirant Mohd Ali Rustam, for blaming the Chinese in his loss of the Bukit Katil parliamentary seat in the recent general elections, although the majority of voters there are Malays.

He urged the former Malacca chief minister to stop pointing fingers, do some soul searching and identify his problems.

"He has just made himself an icon of a sore loser," said Gan in a statement.

Mohd Ali lost Bukit Katil to PKR's Shamsul Iskandar Mohd Akin. About 53 percent of the voters there are Malays, while Chinese account for 41 percent.

Mohd Ali had pinned the blame on the Chinese for his loss, labeling them as ungrateful.

However the former Malacca chief minister, in an interview with Mingguan Malaysia, was adamant that Chinese tsunami should not end his political career.

Gan (left) noted that in the run-up to the Umno party elections, candidates like Mohd Ali had been playing racial and religious cards, at the expense of other communities, and this was damaging to the social fabric of our nation.

He noted that the MCA suffered a massive electoral defeat too and that blaming the voters was one of the darnest things that a politicians could do.

"BN should look into the underlying causes of defeat in the urban areas, the Malay heartland and Chinese grounds," he said.

The MCA vice-president added the MCA would not fall into the right wing's "play the victim drama" by making similar remarks that could be seen as supporting them.

DAP: Take action on Ali Rustam

Penang chief minister and DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said Mohd Ali and Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's racial taunts against non-Malays proves that prime minister Najib Abdul Razak's 1Malaysia programme is dead.

Saying DAP is not surprised at the racial hatred spewed by Mohd Ali, Lim pointed out that even if all the Chinese had voted against Ali, he would have still won, had he not lost a significant number of Malay votes.

"However Ali conveniently blamed the Chinese to hide the real reason for his loss to Shamsul Iskandar, which was due to his corruption and abuse of power in bullying the Malacca people, when he was CM."

He said that any failure by the Najib to act on Mohd Ali and Ahmad Zahid (right) would only divide Malaysia into two, with one standard for Umno and another for those outside Umno.

Ahmad Zahid, the Penang chief minister said, ignores the fact that non-Malays are also victims of crime, and that due process of the law is being denied by asking police to shoot criminals first if the police have evidence.

Lim further called on all Malaysians to stand up to Umno and reject such division, discrimination and destruction of human dignity.