DAP a multi-racial party? That’s debatable, Umno minister says
(Malay Mail Online) – DAP will have to do more than field Malay candidates in the next general election to shed its anti-Malay image, an Umno minister said today when questioning the Chinese-dominated opposition party’s claim to be multiracial..
The minister, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak, said for this to be true, DAP’s support base and leadership makeup has to better reflect Malaysia’s racial demographics.
To explain his point, Salleh cited the examples of Umno and PKR, noting that the late MGG Pillai, a journalist and political activist, had labelled the former a Malay party and the latter a Malay-based multiracial party.
“The reason Pillai said that PKR is a Malay-based multi-racial party is because the bulk of its membership and support base is Malay even though its leaders and the candidates in the election are not,” he wrote in a posting.
“DAP also claims it is a multi-racial party. But then it is a Chinese-based multi-racial party and whether it can legitimately claim to be a true Malaysian party (meaning not Chinese-based) is a matter that is still open for discussion because of the lack of a strong presence of Malays in the party,” he added.
Salleh said Umno could choose to field Christian candidates for the polls while PAS, another Malay opposition party, could field Hindu candidates, but this would not take away the fact that both are Malay parties.
In the same vein, he said DAP would not stop being referred to as a Chinese-based party if it were to field more Malay candidates for the polls.
The desire and intention to form a strong multiracial coalition was the very reason why the late Tun Abdul Razak Hussein formed Barisan Nasional (BN) more than four decades ago, Salleh said.
“DAP would have to do more to shed its Chinese image than just field a handful of Malay candidates in the election. The makeup of its leadership plus its support based needs to reflect its claims,” he said.
“So unless the support base of any party reflects this it cannot yet claim to be a party for all Malaysians,” he added.
DAP has admitted that it is struggling to erase its “anti-Malay” image as it faces opposition both internally and externally to bringing in more Malay party members.
The party’s Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming recently claimed that even within the party, many members have been against the idea of increasing DAP’s Malay membership and this has created a conundrum for the Chinese-dominated party.
Ong added a warning that for the DAP to increase its support from the Malays, the party must lose its anti-Islam and anti-Malay labels and this meant that some crucial changes must be made.
