Kit Siang calls Dr M ‘No 1 racist in Malaysia’
By Clara Chooi, The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 25 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s latest play at racial politics has earned him the wrath of his parliamentary foe Lim Kit Siang, who has now christened the former premier with a new nickname — “the number one racist in Malaysia”.
The DAP advisor slammed Dr Mahathir for playing the race card yet again when he claimed the Malays would lose power if Pakatan Rakyat (PR) defeats the Barisan Nasional (BN) in the next general election.
“Our beloved former Prime Ministrer Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said that in the next general election, the Malays would lose power if the PR forms the government.
“Imagine, a former Prime Minister, who ruled us for 22 long years, returning to politics as the number one racist in Malaysia,” he boomed to a crowd of over 1,000 people at a fundraising dinner in Bandar Menjalara here last night, organised by the Segambut DAP division. Lim’s rhetoric earned him thunderous applause from the crowd, who yelled in disagreement at Dr Mahathir’s latest assertion.
He also accused Dr Mahathir of appearing on the stump for Umno by trying to frighten off the Malay voters from voting PR.
“He is trying to instil fear in the Malays by playing the race card on them. This is the height of Dr Mahathir’s irresponsibility. He is becoming an ultra again,” Lim said.
Dr Mahathir, in his cautionary message to the Malay community on Thursday, also spoke of the possibility of a non-Malay snapping up the post of prime minister if PR took federal power as there was no constitutional restriction to stop this.
To further expound his prediction on the impact of a PR-helmed Federal government, the former Umno president had specifically singled out the case of former Perak mentri besar Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin.
Nizar, he said, was a sterling example of how Malay PR politicians had been sidelined in the coalition.
“We see Nizar in Perak…even though he was Mentri Besar, he followed the instructions of DAP until he fell. The Chinese claim this was BN’s move to bring down a Chinese government.
“So they called it a Chinese administration and is it not possible that we can have a prime minister like Nizar, Malay in name and a Muslim but not really independent and a tool of others,” he said.
During his 11-month rule in Perak, Nizar, from PAS, was often criticised as a DAP puppet who made all his administrative decisions at the whims and fancies of DAP cousins Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham and Nga Kor Ming.
Lim dusted off Dr Mahathir’s allegations however and claimed instead that the Perak PR government had been a “Malaysian government”.
