DAP Secretary-General, Lim Kit Siang, today issued the following statement:
DAP decides to boycott Radio Malaysia political broadcast in protest against being allotted only 13 minutes and describes the 1974 General Elections as the ‘most unfair and undemocratic general election’ in the history of Malaysia
The Democratic Action Party has decided to boycott the Radio Malaysia political broadcast in protest against being allotted only 13 minutes of radio time.
This is indeed a real farce. The DAP is contesting 46 Parliamentary seats on the August 24 polls, while the National Front has 82 Parliamentary candidates in West Malaysia is about twice the DAP Parliamentary candidates, they are given air time eight times our allotted time.
This again does not take into account all the Radio and Television time that National Front leaders and candidates get on other programmes. DAP and other opposition parties have also been denied Television time!
The 1974 General Elections is the most unfair and undemocratic general elections in the history of Malaysia. The government has imposed so many restrictive regulations to hamper and handicap opposition electioneering that it must reflect on the National Front leaders’ uncertainty about the outcome of the General Elections.
This is why the police have imposed a ban on all public rallies at 10.30 p.m., when in all previous general elections public rallies can go on till midnight. The National Front does not want the people to have ample opportunities to listen to Opposition leaders explain the reall issues at stake in the 1974 general elections, most of which are censored from the mass media.
In Malacca last night, the police refused to issue a permit for a public rally to be held at Tranquerah in my Kota Melaka Parliamentary constituency, which is another evidence of the unfairness of the 1974 General Elections. Despite the police ban, several thousands of the people of Malacca was in Tranquerah and refused to leave for even an hour. In cantrast, the National Front rally had less than a hundred people.
Other unfair and restrictive rules which have been imposed for the 1974 general elections are:
1. Shortening of the elections campaign period to 16 days when the normal election campaign period is four to five weeks.
2. Shortening of the voting hours on polling day from the previous 12-hour period of 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., to 10.5 hours from 8 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. This is because the National FRont knows that from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. it is the peak voting period of workers have returned from factories and work, after their bath, rest and meal, would go and vote. The National Front cannot get the votes of the working class but only the rich and the well to do. Thus, this new unfair rule.
Let the people of Malaysia demonstrate to the National Front, that despite these many odds and handicaps that the DAP has to face in the 1974 general elections, they solidly back all Rocket candidates to vote for a change in the policies of the government, for a clean and honest government, and for a Malaysia where all Malaysian can feel fully part.