I refer to the Malaysiakini article The King and the Dewan Rakyat.

His Majesty, the Yang Di Pertuan Agong once called for peace and racial harmony between the races. Unfortunately, the very reason the issue of harmony has come to a boil is because of years of playing with racial politics. Pitting one ethnic race against another for the selfish reason of perpetuating and justifying BN’s rule.

To the Malays, Umno paints itself as the protector of the Malay race and Islam and frequently refers to a ‘struggle’ whatever that means. The Chinese are told to keep the MCA strong so that we can continue to beg the government for Chinese schools and contracts and ministerial positions in the cabinet.

How can there be any sort of unity in Malaysia if its very political system is based on race? Each component party exists within the BN to broker or fight for their own ethnic group. How long will we last? We will drown ourselves this way. The very reason for these tensions is because of the racial games the BN insists on playing.

Non-bumiputera Malaysians continue to support a race-based political party at their very own peril. As the Chinese community decreases from 40 percent in the 1970s to 27 percent in 2005, what sort of voice will the Chinese have in a race-based party? What will be the fate of the Chinese community? We only need to look at the other minority group (the Indians) to know the answer to that question.

I hope the King will step in to ensure that we, the ‘rakyat’ and his humble subjects of all races and ethnic groups, will be able to have a free and fair elections this year when it is called. We have no one else to look to as the many government agencies have proven time and again that they will only serve BN and not the rakyat .