Ku Li’s cynical play for Umno leadership
Tengku Razaleigh seems to be no different from other Umno politicians in playing racial politics through demonising the DAP and Malaysian Chinese
Koon Yew Yin, Free Malaysia Today
All sorts of developments have taken place in our political arena this past fortnight which prompted me to write. The most prominent is the attempt by the Electoral Commission to steal the next election for the BN.
However many other analysts have commented and written about it so there is no need for me to say anything much except to urge our Malaysian electorate to vote in the next election – wherever the constituency or outcome of the re-delineation exercise – so as to finish off once and for all, Umno’s and Barisan Nasional’s monopoly of power.
Assuming the next election is in 2018, I propose that one of the key electoral slogans for the opposition parties should be: “Malaysians Have Had More Than Enough of 59 Years of BN Misrule and Power Abuse”.
What was personally more surprising to me was the news that Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has now raised the issue of whether the DAP will now dominate the Malaysian political landscape, after the establishment of the two new Malay-based parties, Amanah and Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia.
Surprising is too mild a word. “Shocking and disgusting” is the better description to give especially since his comments were made to a Malay-language daily, Sinar Harian, and clearly targeted at a Malay audience.
Personally, I am terribly disappointed and, yes, also “disgusted”.
I have for a long time been an admirer of Ku Li and have written on several occasions during the past few years on his leadership qualities, his political principles and his decency and good sense. I have argued that these qualities are the ones needed at the helm of the nation to guide us through this difficult time of racial and religious extremism, and unquenched opportunism and craving for power.
To help him get his message across, I invited him to provide the forward to my book ‘Road Map for achieving Vision 2020’ as well as be the keynote speaker at the book launch.
Given his latest comments, however, I wonder if I need to eat my words. I am not the only one. Many readers in the English language Internet have written in even more harsh terms about how upset they are.
Perhaps Ku Li was misquoted or the news report did not reflect clearly what he actually said. But if the report is accurate, what it shows is that Ku Li is no different from other Umno politicians in playing racial politics through demonising the DAP and Malaysian Chinese.
Not long ago Ku li wrote about 10 Golden Political Principles for the country which I helped to disseminate through my writings. Among them were these two:
