Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, at the Malacca State DAP Committee ‘Party Reform’ meeting held in Malacca on Monday, 30th March 1992 at 9.30pm.
The 1992 DAP National Convention will be held in Malacca in July in recognition of the state’s contribution in the DAP’s struggle for democracy, human rights, socio-economic justice and national unity in the past 25 years.
The 1992 DAP National Convention will be held in Malacca in July in recognition of the state’s contribution in the DAP’s struggle for democracy, human rights, socio-economic justice and national unity.
At the Malacca DAP National Convention, DAP delegates and leaders will review the progress that has been made in every state in the Party Reform movement which was launched at the DAP 25th Anniversary Special Congress on December 1, 1991.
The DAP launched the 24-month Party Reform because of four reasons and objectives:
(1) Although the DAP travelled a great political distance in the past 25 years, we can go further and scale new political heights in the future.
(2) We can coast along on the DAP political capital accumulated in the past 25 years, but this is not our political purpose. We do not want to just politically ‘exist’ but to ‘live and achieve greater power’ and influence than in the past.
The final success of the DAP is the culmination of the victories of the DAP in thousands of struggles and issues fought by the DAP throughout the country.
(3) The final success of the DAP is not the result of one Big Bang during the nine-day general election campaign, but is the culmination of the victories of the DAP in thousands of struggles and issues fought by the DAP throughout the country in the four or five years in between general elections.
(4) The importance of reviving DAP branches’ as the party’s basic grass-root unit of organisation to provide the link between the Party and the people.
For this reason, there can be no temporary halt or rest in the DAP’s unceasing political struggle for the political, economic, educational, cultural, religious and citizenship rights of Malaysians.
Call on people of Malacca to give full support to the Malacca DAP’s fund-raising campaign to buy its own party premises in the State.
The Malacca State DAP, is trying to raise funds to buy its own party premises, which is a most modest one when compared to the ten or twenty-storey headquarters of the MCA, or the headquarters which the Gerakan is building.
The political record of the DAP is an open book, and on the basis of the struggle and sacrifices of the DAP in the past quarter of a century for a more just and equal Malaysia. I call on the people of Malacca
to give full support to the Malacca State DAP’s fund-raising campaign to buy its own party premises in the State.
With its own modest party premises, the Malacca DAP will be in a better position to carry out its political work and struggle.
Although Malacca is a very small state, it has always played a strategic political role in Malaysia, and its importance and influence had always been out of all proportion to its size when compared to other states.
The Malacca DAP, for instance, had many time launched nation-wide campaigns which affect the rights and future of all Malaysians – the most famous of which was the Save Bukit China campaign.
Having been an elected representative for Malacca for17 years, I know that the people of Malacca have the principle, spirit, foresight and stamina to set the pace in Malaysian politics and nation-building in the decades to come.