MP SPEAKS | DAP expresses full support for the candidacy of PKR President-elect Anwar Ibrahim to return to Parliament by contesting in Port Dickson parliamentary seat, recently vacated following the resignation of Danyal Balagopal Abdullah to make way for Anwar.

Anwar’s return to Parliament is overdue when he was unjustly disqualified from his parliamentary seat in 2015, following his criminal conviction for sodomy which has been recognised as a travesty of justice, leading to a full pardon granted to Anwar by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

Anwar’s contesting in Port Dickson comes at a critical juncture to reaffirm and reinforce the soul of Malaysia as democratic, respects rule of law, upholds integrity in leadership, social and economic justice, tolerant, celebrates diversity and inclusiveness.

This vision of unity embracing all races and religions as well as every geographical region contrasts with the opposition, that practices ethnic chauvinism of minority Indians and Chinese, racist dominance to the exclusion of minority groups, and religious extremism that wants to ban everything.

DAP and Pakatan Harapan will support Anwar because he will represent Harapan’s vision of nation-building and national unity under the leadership of Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad (photo).

The opposition will contest against Anwar to promote their politics of division, ethnic chauvinism, racist dominance and religious extremism that clouds reason with blind hatred.

The opposition will play this dangerous game of fire with the nation’s future because they have no political capital to convince Malaysians that they deserve to rule the country.

'Divisive politics'

On the one hand, BN is mired with corruption and continues their state of denial with fairy tales that disputes how billions of ringgit of government money was discovered in the hands of the now opposition leaders or that Malaysia is facing a debt predicament of more than RM1 trillion.

On the other hand, PAS seeks to cover up their failure to manage the economy by breeding hatred, lies and fear against non-Muslims which they described as kafirs.

PAS will continue to use such extremist sentiments as long as they can distract attention from the fact that Kelantan is a failed state.

In fact, Kelantan is practically bankrupt in that they are unable to pay their state government’s staff salary and had to rely on the Federal government for help.

Despite such tactics by PAS, the Federal government will still fulfil our responsibility to financially help the Kelantan government pay the salaries of its civil servants.

Under PAS, non-Muslims will not be allowed to become ministers and lose their rights.

And yet non-Muslim political parties like MCA and MIC can continue to co-operate with PAS as shown in the Seri Setia and Balakong by-election.

Voter rejection of both BN and PAS in the three recent by-elections in Selangor shows that voters decisively rejected extremism and exclusion in favour of a moderate and inclusive government.

DAP believes that voters in the Port Dickson parliamentary by-election will also give a resounding victory to Pakatan and Anwar.

DAP will direct our DAP Negeri Sembilan state committee to activate our machinery and mobilise support to ensure success for Anwar and Pakatan in Port Dickson.

LIM GUAN ENG is the finance minister and Bagan MP. He writes in his capacity as DAP secretary-general.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.