If I were a voter in the Indera Kayangan by-election, I would only consider voting for MCA if Dr Ling Liong Sik manages to successfully extract, before the voting day, unreserved, unconditional and public apologies from Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Umno Youth for the statements they made that hurt the feelings of the Chinese community:

The apologies should be for the statement uttered by the prime minister and Umno president in his year 2000 Merdeka message that Suqiu and Chinese educationist groups were like the 'communist' and 'Al Ma'unah'.

The other statements was the terrorist threat made by Umno Youth to raze the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall at the height of the Suqiu controversy.

I say before voting day because it is on record that before the 1999 general elections, Mahathir had said that the cabinet had accepted Suqiu's proposals but after he won the elections with the Chinese support, he turned around and accused these groups of being 'communists' and 'Al Ma'unah".

We do not want that act of perfidy to happen again. Normally, men grow older and wiser.

If Ling cannot even get these two simple things done before polling day, I suggest that voters in Indera Kayangan, especially Chinese one, reject MCA and teach Umno a lesson.

We are well-off enough not to be beggars of money from BN anymore. We are no more migrant labours. We are Malaysians. We want justice for all.