The DAP leadership has denied that it asked for the deputy prime minister's post, but it never denounced a non-Malay's right to hold the office, the party's assistant national publicity secretary Teo Nie Ching clarified today.

Teo was responding to MCA publicity chief Chai Kim Sen who claimed that DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang's denial that the party had asked for the DPM post meant that it has abandoned its stand that all Malaysians have a right to sit in the office.

"Chai needs to be sent to logic class so that he can understand what Lim said properly," she said in a statement today.

She stressed that DAP denied that it asked for the position of DPM, and did not at any time denounce the right of non-Malays to be appointed to the highest office.

Teo then asked if MCA and Chai Kim Sen believe that all Malaysians have a right to dream of becoming the prime minister of Malaysia.

"The United States elected Barack Obama as its president, 143 years after the end of the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Can Chai Kim Sen give us a simple reason why our children do not have a right to dream so?

"Does Chai not believe that, if we are truly a Malaysian Malaysia, it is possible one day that we would have a non-Malay PM? The non-Malay PM does not necessarily be a Chinese, but can be Indian, Iban, Kadazan or Dayak," she said.

And she argued that a non-Malay PM does not necessarily have to be from DAP, but could be from PKR, Amanah, and even Gerakan, MIC or MCA.

Teo said that while the DAP did not ever ask for nor discuss the position of deputy prime minister, it is not the DAP that is denying non-Malay aspirations to high office.

"But if it is unimaginable for a non-Malay to become the PM of the country, perhaps Chai should ask himself, and answer this question honestly: who is to be blamed for it?" she asked.

Last Wednesday, Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad caused a furore when he said during a dialogue with opposition supporters that DAP once asked for the DPM post.

Mahathir later said that he was mistaken and instead was referring to MCA, which had once asked for the post from the BN.

The matter became fodder for political brickbats between the ruling party and the opposition, especially between DAP and its traditional rival for the Chinese vote, MCA.