Ku Li blames Umno, Dr M for loss of democracy
(Free Malaysia Today) – Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (picture), Umno’s most vocal dissident, yesterday fired some of his most devastating salvos in recent weeks, at one point using the word “deranged” to describe the country’s leadership.
Speaking at the launch of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS), the member of parliament for Gua Musang declared that Malaysia was a democracy only in name.
According to The Malaysian Insider, he appeared to have singled out Umno and former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad for the loss of democracy in Malaysia and thus the betrayal of what Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, Malaysia’s founding prime minister, stood for.
IDEAS is dedicated to the memory of the Tunku and its mission is to promote liberty and justice.
Razaleigh said Malaysia had been “left it to the deranged for too long. To expect change from the incumbents is to expect, in the Malay saying, the mice to repair the gourd, bagai tikus baiki labu.”
Tunku Abdul Rahman, he said, “brought together a Malaysia … ‘through our own free will and desire in the true spirit of brotherhood and love of freedom,’ in a union arrived at ‘by mutual consent by debate and discussion … through friendly argument and compromise,’ and ‘in the spirit of co-operation and concord.’
“That basis has been replaced by something alien to it. His memory has been suppressed, and our history revised.”
