by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for’ Tanjong, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Monday, October 17, 1994:
Chew Peh and other MCA Ministers are getting hysterical because the general elections which they had been waiting for since last year had yet been.
MCA Ministers and leaders are getting hysterical because the general elections they have been waiting for since last year had not yet been called.
In fact, MCA is the only Barisan Nasional component party which had been so sure that general elections would be held in October’ that the MCA President, Datuk Dr Ling Liong Sik, had even gone to Kampar to announce its first slate of candidates and the MCA general elections preparations campaign had peaked more than once.
Although MCA prides itself as the second biggest party in the Barisan Nasional after UNNO, the leadership in MCA knows even less about what is happening in the Barisan Nasional thansmaller parties like MIC and Gerakan.
The MIC, for instance, is so sure that general elections would not be held this ‘year that it had gone ahead and fixed the MIC general assembly on November 26 and 27, after the UMNO General Assembly on November 17-20.
This is another example that MCA with four Cabinet Ministers has less influence than MIC with one Cabinet Minister – a fact which was powerfully illustrated when MIC with one Cabinet Minister could get a special allocation of 10 million Telekom shares for the educational upliftment of the Indian community while MCA with four Cabinet Ministers could not get a single Telekom share allocation for the educational welfare of the Chinese community.
It is because the MCA Ministers and leaders are getting hysterial because the general elections they had been wait¬ing for since last year had not yet been called that we see MCA leaders making wilder and wilder accusations against the DAP in the past few days.
The MCA Secretary-General and Minister for Housing and Local Government, Dr. Ting Chew Peh, for instance, said in Serem¬ban yesterday that the DAP “must be regarded as the number one enemy of the Chinese community”.
Chew Peh cannot be so naive as to believe his allegation, for if a opinion poll is conducted among the Malaysian Chinese as to whether it is the MCA or DAP which is the ‘number one enemy of the Chinese community’, there is no doubt as to the answer. This is why in the 1990 general elections, the MCA could only get 20 to 25 per cent of the support of the Chinese voters in the country.
If the MCA leadership had its way, there would be no ‘Minor Liberalisation` in the past three years.
In fact, if the MCA leaders had their way, Bukit China in Malacca would have been demolished, the ‘ultimate objective’ of the National. Education Policy would have been achieved with the conversion of all Chinese primary schools into national primary schools and the country would have been in an advanced stage of implementation of the ‘One Language, One Culture’ na¬tion-building policy announced by the Barisan Nasional Government after the 1982 general elections.
It is the DAP which. through our long-term political struggle and the sacrifices of the DAP leaders in the past three decades which had forced the Prime minister, Datuk Seri Mahathir to embark on the ‘Minor Liberalisation’ in educational and economic fields in the past three years.
Although Chew Peh dares to accuse the DAP of being the number one enemy of the Chinese community’, I am confident that neither the MCA President, Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik nor Chew Peh would have the courage of their convictions.
This is why I dare say that none of them would dare co have a public debate with the DAP as to who is in fact the biggest stumbling block to the protection and advancement of the legitimate rights and interests of the Malaysian Chinese.
Last week, I had invited the MCA leaders to join the DAP to work for ‘Full Liberalisation’ in Malaysia to give every Malaysian citizen an equal place under the Malaysian sun.
MCA had not dared to accept. this DAP offer for fear of antagonising the UMNO ‘Big Brother’ and has only shown its nega¬tive and destructive role by opening opposing the DAP’s call for the translation of the ‘Minor Liberalisation’ into ‘Full Liberalisation’.