Press Conference Statement (2) by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, in Penang on Tuesday, 28th August 1984 at 10.30 a.m.
Lim Kit Siang offers to pay for Datuk Harris Salleh’s return ticket to attend the Sept. 3 date at Chinese Assembly Hall in Kuala Lumpur for hear him repeat his entire Parliamentary speech of July 23
I am prepared to pay for Datuk Harris Salleh’s return ticket to attend the Sept. 3 date at the Chinese Assembly Hall in Kuala Lumpur to hear me repeat my entire parliamentary speech of July 23, 1984, which he had originally challenged me to repeat in Sandakan on August 26 at 10 a.m. but he chickened out at the last minute by banning from entry into Sabah.
This must be the first time in the political history not only of Malaysia but of the world, where one political leader challenged another person to repeat his speech outside Parliament, and when this was accepted, the challenger backed out, in this case, by banning me from entry into Sabah.
I now challenged Datuk Harris Salleh to come to the Sept. 3 date at the Chinese Assembly Hall in Kuala Lumpur, and I will not be like him, backing out at the last minute. In fact, I am prepared to pay his return ticket for him to attend the Sept. 3 date.
I know that Datuk Harris is more afraid of my July 23 speech than anything else, and that is why he backed out of the Sandakan date of August 26 at the last minute.
Datuk Harris Salleh had accused me of ‘inciting the people’ by my conduct of challenging the law at the Kota Kinabalu Airport seeking to enter Sabah when I should know that I am banned from entry. He even want to the extent of saying that it was because of the ‘bad example’ of DAP leaders like me that the crime rate in Sandakan is increasing.
Datuk Harris has proved to be irresponsible and power-crazy, but now he has shown himself to be childish and immature. I do not even have to rebut wild statements that it is because of the so-called bad example of DAP leaders that the crime rate in Sandakan is increasing, because I believe any person who read of such statements would shake their head in sorrow and sadness that we have a State Chief Minister of this intellect and calibre.
The entire Harris Salleh affair, and in particular in his breach of Article 6(5) of the Sabah State Constitution which prohibits the Chief Minister from actively engaging in commercial enterprises, raises the question of political morality in Malaysia – whether politics have a moral basis, or it could be carried out in the most immoral manner.
We have here a case where Harris Salleh is clearly in the wrong morally, legally, constitutionally and politically. Dealing with the morality of the question for the moment, how could a Chief Minister who is morally wrong in his conduct, continue to brazen it out as if he is morally right?
What has happened to the 2M government’s slogan of ‘Leadership by Example’? The DAP has proved beyond a shadow of doubt that Datuk Harris Salleh lacked political morality and legitimacy to continue as Sabah Chief Minister, and I call on the Prime Minister to remove Datuk Harris Salleh as Sabah Chief Minister to demonstrate that the Government upholds and demands political morality from all its leaders.