Speech by DAP Secretary-General and Parliamentary Candidates for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, at a DAP General Elections Rally at Petaling Jaya New Town, on Monday, 12th August 1974 at 8 p.m
1. Lim Kit Siang calls on the voters to vote solidly for all DAP parliamentary candidates to ensure that the Dewan Rakyat does not become a second Dewan Negara full of government yes-men to rubber stamps government decisions
The National Front will continue to form the next Federal Government while Tun Razak will continue as the Prime Minister. The general elections on 24th August however will decide whether Malaysia is to become a one-party state, leading to the stifling of more basic freedoms and liberties of the people, or whether there is going to be strong, coherent and effective Opposition in Parliament which can keep the government on their toes.
I call on the votes of Malaysia to solidly vote for all the DAP Parliamentary Candidates to ensure that the Dewan Rakyat does not become a Second Senate packed with government yes-men to rubber stamp all government policies and decisions.
If the people want their voice and their problems to be raised, heard and attended to in Parliament, then they must rally behind the DAP and put our candidates into Parliament. Otherwise, in the new Parliament, there will only be echoes of the government to be heard in the Dewan Rakyat.
To ensure that there will be a healthier growth of parliamentary democracy in Malaysia, to save democracy from being stifled by a one-party government as has happened in Sabah, where the word and will of one man is the law of the land, the people must vote intelligently on August 24 to put Opposition candidates into the various legislatures.
2. Tun Razak talking ‘hot air’ when he said all Opposition candidates would lose their deposits
Tun Razak is talking ‘hot air’ when he said yesterday that the National Front is determined to see that all Opposition candidates lose their deposits. I expect more sober statements and speeches from the Prime Minister of the country.
If Tun Razak had been quoted correctly in this statement, he is doomed to disappointment. In fact, we in the DAP are confident of improving on our parliamentary showing in the 1969 general elections where we won 13 Parliamentary seats.
The people are tired of the National Front propaganda that the National Front is something new and exciting, when they know that its policies are no different from the Alliance policies which the majority of the electorate rejected in the 1969 general elections.
They also know that the so-called great unity achieved by the coming together of 9 political parties comprising the National Front is sheer bluff.
The nine political parties merely present an external unity and singleness of purpose , but they continue to stab each other in the back to finish the other off and ensure that the other party’s parliamentary or state candidates lose, so that their future political position in the National Front after August 24 is stronger.
The disunity and division among the nine political parties in the National Front below the surface appearance of unity is indeed scandalous.
A week or so before Nomination, an emissary of Dato S.P; Seenivasagam saw me and asked for co-operation to work out a formula which can bring about a defeat of Tan Sri Manickavasagam in Port Klang. The rationale behind this maneuvers clearly is to ensure that if all the MIC parliamentary candidates are defeated, and in the event, if Dato S.P Seenivasagam survived the general elections, he would enter the Cabinet by sheer lack of any other Parliamentarian of Indian or Ceylonese origin secret.
I refused to have any part in such a tortuous and complicated proposal for we have no intention to be made use of as pawns by one National Front component party to down another one. We in the DAP want to down all of them.
Similarly, although the MCA and the Gerakan have, on surface, agreed to an allocation of seats, they are mutually working for the destruction of the other, by sponsoring Independents against the other party’s candidate.
Although the party leaders go through the motion of expelling those Independents, as required by the National Front President, Tun Razak, it is clear that all these Independents have the tacit and silent backing of their party leaders.
The MCA does not want the Gerakan to win at all, for they regard this as a threat to their political future. Similarly, the Gerakan would like to see MCA candidates lose, as this will prepare the ground for the Gerakan to replace the MCA.
Where, therefore, is the so-called unity that is brought about by the bringing together of nine political parties under the National Front?
3. DAP calls for the defeat of National Front candidates to compel the government to take a second look at its economic, political, educational, social and cultural policies.
The 1974 General Elections is an electoral contest between the DAP and the National Front in West Malaysia. No other party can win. The people should not all allow their votes to be spilt and wasted, for every split a vote to help the National Front to win.
All votes should be solidly cast for DAP candidates, so that the National Front will be compelled to take a second look at this economic, political, educational, social and cultural policies to find out why it is so unpopular.
On the contrary, if the National Front candidates are victorious, then the people will have no hope to change the unjust and inequitable economic, educational, social, political system in Malaysia.
4. National Front Government has given approval for general price increases after the August 24 general elections.
I have just received information that the government has given approval for general price increases after August 24 general elections.
Condensed milk, for instance, will go up by 10 cents a tin, and powdered milk by 10%. Diesel is disappearing in some petrol pumps, and the price of diesel, premium and ordinary are all poised for a mark-up after general elections.
The DAP deplores such general price increases after the general elections, and calls on the Prime Minister to make a categorical statement that there will be no general price increases after Polling Day. We also want specific assurance from Tun Razak that there will be no price increases in condensed milk, powdered milk, oil products after August 24.