Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Petaling, Lim Kit Siang, to the Perak DAP State Working Committee meeting held at Perak State premises in Ipoh on Wednesday, 13th May 1981 at 4.30 p.m.
MPs and State Assemblymen who are available to the highest bidder should go on a public listing, like stocks and shares, as to their latest market price.
In the 1969 General Elections, the first general election s contested by the DAP, the DAP won 13 Parliamentary and 31 State Assembly seats.
During that intervening period until the next general elections in 1974, we lost 4 Members of Parliament and 12 State Assemblymen, whether because of defections to the MCA or expulsion from the party for anti-party activities.
Presently, for the crop of DAP MPs and State Assemblymen elected in the 1978 general elections, we have lost 3 MPs and 7 State Assemblymen, either because of expulsions or defections.
The loss of MPs and State Assemblymen is not by itself an indication of a decline of the party. For instance, although we lost 4 MPs and 12 sate assemblymen from the 1969 batch of elected representatives, in the 1974 general elections, we secured even more votes than in the 1969 general elections.
Thus in 1974 general elections, DAP candidates secured a total of 380,000 votes, as compared to the 1969 general elections. In the 1978 general elections, the total votes polled by the DAP virtually doubled to 700,000 votes.
Individual MPs and State Assemblymen in the DAP can come and go, but so long as the Party leadership, membership and organisation remains intact, committed and unyielding in our resolve to carry our political battle for a more just, more equal and more creative future for every Malaysian, then the DAP will remain the sole political party which could champion to rights of the people and despite defections and betrayals, grow from strength to strength.
The MCA will be gravely mistaken if it believes that by netting Young Heow Choo and Thee Ah Kow, they have also secured the support and confidence of the people of Pantai Remis and Teluk Anson. This was just like the Japanese militarists during the Sino-Japanese war who through by suborning Wang Ching-wei, and naming Wang as the head of the Chinese puppet-government of the Japanese militarists, they had succeeded in securing the confidence and support of the Chinese people.
It is now up to the loyal and selfless DAP leaders and members in Pantai Remis, Teluk Anson, together with DAP Perak State leaders, to prove the MCA wrong, and to expose the betrayals of Young Heow Choo and Thee Ah Kow, by winning back the Pantai Remis and Teluk Anson seats for the DAP in the next general elections.
The last few months and the next few months appear to have become the political ‘mad’ season in Malaysia.
MPs and State Assemblymen are defecting from one party to another without shred of self-respect, dignity or decency.
There are political who believe that ‘Money Courts All’ and that everyone has a price, and the only question us to find the price.
It is now for the DAP to prove the MCA and the Barisan wrong in assuming that everyone could bought over at the right price.
As for MPs and State Assemblymen who are available to the highest bidder, they should go oh a public listing, and like stocks and shares, make known their latest market price!
MP and State Assemblymen who betray the DAP for their own selfish invariably claim that they do so for some high sounding principle, like ‘Chinese Unity’, when in fact it was for ‘Money Unity’.
The future of Malaysian Chinese interests, far from being served, are being harmed and damaged, for their unprincipled and opportunists actions demonstrate to the other races, and in particular UMNO and the Malays, that the Chinese can be suborned with sufficient money.
This, I believe, is the greatest disservice to the Malaysian Chinese and future generations.
This is why the DAP must all the more demonstrate that money can buy four or six, but they cannot buy the overwhelming majority of DAP leaders and members, and even more important, the overwhelming majority of the people.
The people, at the next elections, must demonstrate their revulsion and rejection of the political corruption of money.