Speech by DAP Organising Secretary, Mr. Lim Kit Siang, to a DAP Segamat Utara Parliamentary by-election rally at Jementah, Segamat, on Saturday, October 12 at 8 p.m.
Segamat Utara voters urged to teach the Alliance a lesson on polling day to remind them that they are servants and not masters of the people.
Polling day for the Segamat Utara Parliamentary by-election is only a week away. In seven days, the people of Segamat Utara will have a choice between two candidates, two parties and two policies.
The Alliance had betrayed the people of Segamat in the last ten years, because during this period, they had an Alliance Member of Parliament who never visited them, neglected the constituency, and was completely indifferent to the problems of the people.
Our DAP Candidate, Lee Ah Meng, tells me that there is no specialist physician in the Segamat General Hospital, and that emergency or casualty cases have to be sent either to Muar or Malacca about sixty miles away.
Furthermore, the Segamat General Hospital does not have a serviceable ambulance. The present ambulance is fit for the junk heap, as it is subject to frequent breakdowns. Before this junk heap ambulance, they used a jeep as an ambulance. I will like to know how many persons died without proper medical assistance being given.
This, I think, sums up the indifference and contempt of the Alliance government for the people of Segamat.
I do not want to speak ill of the dead. But many people of Segamat have told me that the best thing the former Member of Parliament has done to Segamat is to cause the present by-election through his death.
For during this one-month by-election period, the slack business has picked up. Hotel, catering, restaurant, coffee shop, transport and even bars, have reported increased business, primarily arising from the well-to-do and numerous Alliance and MCA election workers and speakers in the Alliance campaign.
For the first time in ten years, Ministers came down one by one to Segamat to inquire about the welfare of the people. Even the Labour Minister, Inche V. Manickavasagam, who had flown to Geneva instead of tackling the unemployment problem in the estates, had come down to Batu Anam to meet the estate workers.
But the people of Segamat have grown cynical. They know the Alliance for what they are. If they need new reminders of Alliance elected representatives who behave as if they are masters, and not servants of the people, they can always think of their current State Assemblymen, Mr. Tey Sia Ba and Mr. P. Kumaran.
The reason why the Alliance is so arrogant is because they regard Segamat Utara as their stronghold.
The people have an opportunity to teach the Alliance a lesson on October 19, to remind the Alliance that they are the servants, and not masters, of the people, by rejecting the Alliance and voting for the Rocket.
Although we are completely new in Segamat, the DAP has entered the Segamat Utara Parliamentary by-election because we do not want the Alliance to have a walk-over in the by-election. If this had happened, they will be even more arrogant, and would not even bother if Segamat goes to rot.
Although Segamat is a difficult seat, the DAP is not deterred. The people of Segamat have responded well. We are confident that we can win if the voters of Segamat take the trouble to go to cast their votes on October 19, and persuade their friends and relatives to do the same.
Many Alliance MPs and State Assemblymen got elected because many voters did not bother to go to vote, although they were opposed to the Alliance.
The Alliance is deeply worried about the DAP, because they are scared of a defeat in this by-election. They know that if the DAP wins in the Segamat Utara Parliamentary by-election, despite the fact that it is an UMNO stronghold, that the DAP had no previous organisation, then the DAP will be able to get about 25 Members of Parliament elected in the coming general elections, and double the number of State Assemblymen. Once Segamat falls, Johore Bahru, Kluang and Batu Pahat in the State of Johore are bound to fall as well.
This is why so many Ministers are coming down for this by-election. In fact, it appears that Inche Musa Hitam is not standing as a candidate, but that all the Alliance Ministers are standing as candidates.
We expect that in the next few days, the Alliance will begin to intensify their smear and slander campaign against the DAP, which they had never been able to prove.
The people of Segamat will not believe them, because they know from first hand experience that the Alliance has broken faith with the voters of Segamat Utara in the last ten years when an Alliance MP served in this area.
Audited on 2021-05-03.