Talk by DAP Organising Secretary, Mr. Lim Kit Siang, to the Serdang Bahru DAP Branch on Thursday, 18 April 1968 at 8 p.m.
Election-itis hits Malaysia
A new disease, election-itis, has hit Malaysia. This is a disease which occurs once in five years, with the approach of the general elections.
As the general elections draws near, more and more people will be bitten by the election bug, and work themselves into a fit of election fever and frenzy.
In the last few weeks, many ex-politicians, who had been active and even contested in elections five years ago, but had disappeared from the political scene in the last five years, have begun popping up in various parts of the country.
There is no doubt that in the next few months, more of this breed, attracted by the glitter of Parliamentary and State seats, will fall victim to this disease of election-itis.
There is also no doubt that after the next general elections, these people will disappear from the political scene for five years, before they re-emerge politically on the approach of another general elections.
There are many people who think that politics means to fight elections. Their whole thinking, strategy and even objectives are geared and subordinated to electoral calculations.
We in the DAP do not subscribe to the nation that politics means fighting elections only.
What is even more important is a sustained and remitting effort through the years to build up a national political movement to bring about a just and equal Malaysian society, where is not only no exploitation of man by man, but also where there is no exploitation of race by race.
Our mission is to mobilize more and more Malaysians on the side of a democratic socialist and Malaysian Malaysia, to build a Malaysian nation and not to break the country through racialist policies.
This work we have dedicated ourselves. It is a task we will discharge, not only for the six or twelve months before a general elections, but week after week, month after month, year after year, for the next 10 or 20 years regardless of elections.
Since the beginning of this year, the DAP has launched a systematic and sustained campaign throughout the country to spread the DAP’s message of a multi-racial democratic socialist society. Those campaign will be stepped up with every passing month. And this campaign will not end with the next general elections. On the contrary, immediately after the elections, a week or two weeks, whatever the election results, the DAP will continue with our political crusade, without any slow-down in pace or direction.
We in the DAP are fully conscious of the fact that what we are trying to achieve, a truly equal multi-racial Malaysian nation, cannot be realized in one or two years. It will take at least five or ten years. But if we don’t start the campaign now, it will never be realised.
To all DAP supporters, I say this: The DAP crusade is a long one. But victory must be ours so long as we remain steadfast to our objectives, and never allow short-term advantages and expedients to sacrifice long-term aims.