MP SPEAKS | Although I had a fall in my Gelang Patah house, causing me five stitches on the right forehead and cancellation of my weekend programmes in Johor and Selangor – and maybe tomorrow’s Parliamentary opening by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, what with the ugly blue-black marks around my right eye – I just cannot stand the MCA humbug, cant and hypocrisy shown at the party’s 69th anniversary yesterday.
MCA president and Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai should explain what credibility he possesses when claiming at a press conference after the event that MCA represents the Chinese, when the top three MCA leaders, i.e., the president, deputy president and secretary-general, depend on Umno’s Malay votes to get into Parliament and the cabinet?
Is the MCA representing the Chinese in BN, or is it representing Umno to Chinese Malaysians? Or is MCA representing all Malaysians, regardless of race or religion?
In Bentong, Liow’s parliamentary constituency, the single biggest ethnic bloc of voters are Malay voters (46.1 percent), with 42.4 percent Chinese voters, nine percent Indians and others at 2.5 percent.
In Ayer Hitam, the parliamentary constituency of MCA deputy president and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Wee Ka Siong (photo), the largest ethnic group of voters are 57.6 percent Malay voters, with the Chinese at 38.3 percent, Indians at 3.9 percent and others at 0.2 percent.
And in Tanjong Malim, the parliamentary constituency of MCA secretary-general and Trade and Industry Minister II Ong Ka Chuan, the largest ethnic group of voters are again the Malays at 55.4 percent, with Chinese 25.8 percent, Indians 13.2 percent and Orang Asli 5.6 percent.
Furthermore, Malay voters represent the largest ethnic group in six of the seven parliamentary constituencies won by MCA in the 13th general election.
I have said elsewhere that late MCA presidents with sense of honour and self-respect must be turning in their grave, and the living holding their heads in shame, that the 69th MCA anniversary had degenerated into a brawl with a middling Umno minister, instead of speaking up for 6.5 million Chinese Malaysians in the country.
If the entire MCA, with three cabinet Ministers and claiming to be the world’s third largest ethnic Chinese political party with over one million members, cannot even handle Nazri Abdul Aziz, how are they to cope with the extremists in Umno or more senior Umno leaders?
An MCA national leader asked what the Lim Kit Siang father-and-son combo are waiting for and not asking Nazri to apologise?
A simple political lesson for all MCA leaders is to read DAP websites if they want to know what its leaders are saying, and not to just depend on MCA/Umno/BN media, whether printed, electronic or social, or the highly funded “quinoa cybertroopers,” for they will not get the truth.
MCA leaders have very short memory, that if not for my prodding, MCA leaders would not have defended Robert Kuok from the four-day gratuitous, baseless, malicious and savage Umno attacks – not only from Nazri, but also three other Umno leaders.
Without the “green light” from the Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, would there be such a gratuitous, baseless, malicious and savage Umno attacks on Kuok lasting four days?
This is why I had said right from the beginning that it is not Nazri (photo) alone, but the entire Umno and BN which must apologise to Kuok.
When I was in Kampong Raja, Camerons Highlands at the end of last month, I told the MCA leadership that it would be “an eternal blot on their reputation” if the three ministers from the party dare not even ask the Umno leadership to make an open apology for their attacks on Robert Kuok.
I reminded the MCA leaders that Kuok had been the benefactor, and even saviour, of MCA in its trying times, and for them to stand idle while Kuok was attacked gratuitously by Umno leaders would be one of the party’s most shameful episodes.
I even said that MCA should cancel its 69th anniversary celebrations if MCA leaders dared not defend Kuok.
I said I have no personal knowledge of what Kuok had done for MCA, but according to his memoirs published recently, the tycoon had saved MCA many times, including bailing out an MCA president with RM20 million in Singapore in 1986, and rescuing MCA’s business projects that were doomed to fail.
It was only then that the MCA leaders plucked up courage and began to speak up.
Later the same day, at a DAP kopitiam ceramah at Kampong Raja, I specifically condemned an Umno minister for “going bersek” in using unacceptable language to denounce Kuok, quoting a Greek saying: “Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first made mad.”
I asked whether the spate of gratuitous and savage attacks on Kuok was because “some Umno leader approached Kuok for donations and was rebuffed,” as Robert Kuok had revealed in his recent memoirs that he had contributed substantial funds to BN and MCA “especially when it comes to election time.”
However, the initial MCA statements defending Kuok were weak and insipid, and it was after I pointed this out that MCA leaders came out with stronger statements.
I am glad that three MCA ministers acted on my call during my speech at the Bertam Valley kopitiam dialogue to raise the Umno attacks on Kuok at the Cabinet meeting last Wednesday, but they restricted their attention to Nazri, instead of asking for an apology from Umno as a whole.
Yes, Nazri must apologise for the gratuitous, baseless, malicious and savage attacks on Kuok, but it is not just Nazri who did so – it was also Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, Azalina Othman Said, Tajuddin Abdul Rahman and even Najib himself.
Have the three MCA ministers ever asked for apology from the rest?
Today the MCA-controlled newspaper The Star carried a report headlined: “DAP’s Wong slammed over corruption remark,” where Wong Tack was attacked for reportedly saying that the Chinese could accept some form of corruption, as long as everyone lives prosperously together and those in power do not steal everything.
Those who know and supported DAP for 52 years know that this is not the party’s stand.
It stands for a Malaysia with zero tolerance for corruption – and this is why over the decades, DAP leaders have spoken up fearlessly against all forms of corruption and abuses of power.
I spoke to Wong Tack this morning, and he clarified he was misreported, as he said there were those of the view that the Chinese could accept some form of corruption provided everyone lives prosperously and those-in-power do not steal everything – but this had never been the DAP position.
Liow and Wee had been in Parliament and cabinet for the last two decades, when Malaysia’s Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) ranking plunged from 32nd in 1999 (when Liow was first elected to Parliament) to 39th in 2004 (when Wee was first elected to Parliament) to the sorry 62nd out of 180 countries in the latest index.
Did Liow and Wee ever speak up in Parliament and cabinet about this continuous plunge?
Did Liow and Wee ever speak up about the 1MDB scandal, which made Malaysia a global kleptocracy in their years in Parliament and cabinet?
But I congratulate Wee for becoming Umno’s catspaw to tar and stain the reputation of the Penang Pakatan Harapan state government, when he has no concern whatsoever for integrity or good governance as demonstrated MCA’s spineless position on the 1MDB scandal or Malaysia’s infamy, ignominy and iniquity of being regarded worldwide as a global kleptocracy.
LIM KIT SIANG is the MP for Gelang Patah and DAP parliamentary leader.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
