UMNO Supreme Council meeting on Wednesday night will be the focus of attention as indicating whether Parliament will be dissolved in a matter of days

Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjong, Lim Kit Siang, at the Kerling DAP Branch anniversary dinner held at Kerling, Selangor on Monday, October 10, 1994 at 8 pm

UMNO Supreme Council meeting on Wednesday night will be the focus of attention as indicating whether Parliament will be dissolved in a matter of days

The UMNO Supreme Council meeting on Wednesday will be the focus of national attention as indicating whether Parliament will be dissolved in a matter of days, with polling for the general elections either at the end of this month or early next month – or whether general elections will be held next year.

There is another reason why the UMNO Supreme Council meeting tomorrow has become the national focus – the recent UMNO power play’ purportedly over UMNO Youth’s demand that Tan Sri. Rahim Tamby Cik should not be renominated as a Barisan National candidate in the next general elections.

Acting UMNO Youth Leader, Datuk Nazri Tan Sri Aziz, is right when he declared that Rahim Tamby Cik’s political future is not a ‘legal question but apolitical question’.

However, Nazri would be more right if he had not confined his call for Rahim to be dropped as an UMNO candidate in the next general elections to the allegation of Rahim having an affair with a 15-year-old schoolgirl, but had also founded his call on the numerous police reports of corruption lodged against Rahim Tamby Cik by DAPSY National Chairman and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Guan Eng.

Although Nazri seems to have been abandoned by everyone and to be very isolated at present with his open challenge to the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, over the political future of Rahim Tamby Cik, nobody believes Nazri would have made such an outburst completely on his own initiative.

The recent UMNO ‘power play is not just a difference of opinion between UMNO Youth and the UMNO President as to how Rahim Tamby Cik should be treated, but even more important, it represents an even more deep-seated generational conflict inside the UMNO leadership.

Although I expect the fissures in UMNO which were suddenly exposed by the recent ‘UMNO power play’ to be patched up, these fissures will become even more serious over time until there is a full eruption in UMNO – probably after the next general elections.

Next general elections is not about ‘Minor Liberalisation’ but about ‘Full Liberalisation’

The next general elections, whether in the next few days or next year, is very important to the future nation-building policies of the country.

The next general elections is not about the ‘Minor Liberalisation’ in the past three years, as nobody objects or opposes to the ‘Minor Liberalisation’ in certain education and economic measures.

This is why MCA, Gerakan and Barisan Nasional leaders must be told in no uncertain terms that they are not only wrong but being utterly irrelevant if they call on the people to show their support for ‘Minor Liberalisation’ in the next general elections by voting for MCA and Gerakan.

‘Minor Liberalisation’ is not art issue in the next general elections, as such ‘minor liberalisation’ had been long overdue.

The DAP has ample proof that the MCA and Gerakan had nothing to do with the ‘Minor Liberalisation’ and that in fact, the ”Minos Liberalisation’ of the past three years are the result of the struggle and sacrifice of the people in the past three decades in giving full support to the DAP’s battle for a Malaysian Malaysia.

It is precisely because the DAP has such, proof that MCA and Gerakan had nothing to do with the ‘Minor Liberalisation’ of the past three years that no MCA or Gerakan leader dared ‘to accept the DAP challenge to a full public debate on ‘Full Liberalisation’.

MCA, Gerakan and Barisan Nasional leaders must be told that the real issue in the next general elections is about ‘Full Liberalisation’ – giving every Malaysian an equal place tinder the Malaysian sun.

It is precisely because MCA, Gerakan and Barisan Nasional leaders do not support the DAP’s call for ‘Full Liberalisation’ that the DAP has decided to make ‘Full Liberalisation’ the central theme in the next general elections.

Nobody objects to ‘Minor Liberalisation’ but the people in the next general elections must make clear their support for the DAP’s call for ‘Full Liberalisation’ so that Anwar Ibrahim’s favourite saying before Chinese audiences, ‘We Are All One Family’, can have true and real meaning in government policy formulation and implementation.