Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, at the DAP meeting of national and state party leaders on the next general election held in Petaling Jaya on Sunday, May 25, 1986 at 10a.m.
Present may be the ‘calm before the storm’ and the DAP cannot exclude the possibility of general elections being held after Hari Raya Puasa at end of June or early July.
In the last month, there is increasing speculation that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, will be going for the full term into next year. Such speculation had seemingly been reinforced by two recent events: winning a comfortable two-third majority and the appointment of Ghaffar Baba as Deputy Prime Minister.
Newspaper and political pundits are now so uncertain about the election dates that they have stayed awaya from their forecasts of the unlikely election dates. As a result, there is a strange silence and calm about twhen the next general election is going to be held. This however may be the ‘calm before the storm’ and the DAP central Executive Committee has called this meeting of national and state leaders specifically to stress that the party cannot exclude the possibility of general elections being held after Hari Raya Puasa at the end of June or early July.
If the general elections are not held by early July, the next possible dates are August/ September/ October or full term next year.
DAP leaders, branches and members must not regard the delay in the holding of general elections as time for rest or break, but as extra time for getting the DAP to be in a better prepared state to fight the general elections when it is held.
There can be no let-up in our elections preparations regardless of whether the general elections are held in a month’s time, or in a year’s time. The coming general elections is the most important elections for the DAP as well as for the people of Malayusia, and for this reason, DAP leaders and members can only have rest when the general elections had been fought and over with.
Barisan National Government has deviated from its 1982 election pledge of a ‘clean, efficient and thrusworthy’ administration.
In the 1982 general elections, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamed pledged of a ‘clean, efficient and thrusworthy’ one, and that every government action would be guided by these three standards.
Unfortunately, the Barisan National Government has deviated from its pledge of a ‘clean, efficient and thrusworthy’ government. The best example is the failure to date on the part of the government to give a full and total accounting on the $2.5 million Bumiputra Malaysia Finance scandal.
The government thinks that with the publication of the Ahmad Nordin Inquiry Committee reports, the people will forget about the BMF scandal. As a resyult, no single government agency has taken any action, either to follow up on the recommendations of the Ahmad Nordin Inquiry Committee, or to protect public interests and to uphold the law.
Last week, it was reporated from Hong Kong that the Court-appoionted liquidators of Carrian Investment Ltd. Arthur Young had filed a civil claim against the Carrian auditors, Price Waterhouse & Co., for negligence.
This civil claim was an effort by the liquidators to seek compensation for unsecured creditors. Carrian Investments’ estimated liabilities total HK$4.79 billion. Of this , unsecured debts for HK$2.7 billion, but the co9mpany has enough assets to pay only 24 per cent of these debts, and the unsecured creditors, have not received any repayment.
The question Malaysin have a right to ask is why the Malaysian authorities, and in particular the Bank Bumiputra, has not taken any action, including inititing civil action against its auditors for negligence in allowing the $2.5 billion BMF scandal to be take place, to recover some if the losses the Malaysian taxpayers suffered from the scandal.
Public inquiry into the UMBC transactions of Daim Zainuddin.
The Malaysian people are also very disappointed by the dismissal of the Asian Wall Street Journal Report by the Prime Minister, Daim Zainuddin.
Dr. Mahathir said on Friday that the Asian Wall Street Journal article on the UMBC deal ‘looks like a deliberate attempt to blacken the name of Malaysia’, accusing the report of publishing ‘lies’. But the Prime Minister has refused to let Malaysians know the true version.
I wish to remind the Prime Minister that the two UMBC deals involving the Finance Minister is a matter of public interest, which all Malaysians have right to know the full details. It is not a private affair between the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister on the one hand and the Asian Wall Street Journal on the other.
If the Asian Wall Street Journal had ‘lied’, and is attempting to ‘blackening the name of Malaysia’ by distorted stories, then let the Prime Minister produce all the evidence, tell the full story about the two UMBC deals, and convince Malaysians about his charges against the Asian Wall Street Journal.
So long as the Prime Minister or Daim Zainuddin refuse to give a full accounting of the two UMBC deals to the Malaysian public, they have deviated again from their commitment of a ‘clean…trustworthy’ government.
This is why the DAP calls for a public Inquiry into the two UMBC deals involving Daim Zainuddin, for a government which cherishes its reputation of integrity and honesty must be prepared not only to have Ministers who are clean and incorrupt, but who are seen to be clean and incorrupt.
Why should the Prime Minister and Daim Zainuddin hesitate to agree to have such a public inquiry into the UMBC deals if they have nothing to hide?
DAP prepared to co-operate with Tung/ Chiau Chung again if assured that it will not be stabbed in the back at the last minute as happened in 1982 general elections.
The Tung Chung Chairman, Lim Fong Seng, made a most remarkable statement last week, when he asserted that Tung Chiau Chung is above party politics. Although it does not transcend politics;
I do not believe that Lim Fong Seng has made any statement which is greeted with greater disbelief and scepticism in his public life.
Tung Chiau Chung are indeed non-political and non-partisan public organisations, but unfortunately, because of the action and decisions of a few had been damaged because of the Tung Chiau Chung’s slogan of ‘Attack into the Barisan National to rectify the Barisan National’ in the 1982 general elections.
How could Lim Fong Seng say now that he had not led Tung/ Chiau Chung into partisan politics when in the 1982 general elections, he and Ker Choo Ting mobilised their national support for the Barisan National against the DAP resulting in the DAP’s unprecedented electoral losses?
Could Lim Fong Seng really deny the existence even now of ‘Gerakan/ Tung/ Chiau Chung’ elements’ whose objectives is to help the Gerakan against the DAP? Didn’t Foo Wan Thot, the Tung/ Chiau/ Chung representatives in Perak, recently called for the voters to support Dr. Koh Tsu Koon against the DAP- in fact, campaigning against the DAP in Perak.
Wasn’t it because Tung/ Chiau Chung leaders, fresh from the 1982 battle of ‘Attack into the BN to recrify the BN’, was very slow to criticise and oppose the ‘One Language, One Culture’ Policy when it was proclaimed by Barisan National Government in Parliament in October 1982.
Isn’t it true that some of these ‘Gerakan/ Tung/ Chiau Chung elements’ are trying to devise new ways in the coming general elections to pursue their same objectives of the 1982 general elections: to help the Gerakan and defeat the DAP?
These Gerakan-Tung/ Chiau/ Chung elements know that they cannot again ask the voters and the Chinese public to support the Gerakan through the ‘Attack into BN to Rectify the BN’ slogan, for this has proved to be a colossal mistake, with the people paying the heavy price with greater erosion of their fundamental rights.
Is it not true that these Gerakan- Tung/ Chiau Chung elements have thought up the new strategy of trying to spilt the DAP votes by persuading the Chinese voters to vote for PAS or PAS CCC candidates?
In the 1982 general elections, these Gerakan- Tung/ Chiau Chung elements supported the Barisan Nasional on the ground that this is to futher their objectives of ‘Three Into One’. Now, in the coming general elections, these elements want the people to vote for BAS or PAS CCC candidates on the ground that this is to further their new objective of promoting a ‘Two Party System’ in Malaysia.
Just like the 1982’s slogan of ‘Three Into One’, their present ‘Two Party System’ is another hallucination and fiction which have as their common objective- to counter and defeat the DAP.
I am indeed very shocked that there are Tung/ Chiau Chung leaders who could suddenly switch from supporting UMNO in 1982 to supporting PAS in 1986. Just as their 1982 stand in supporting UMNO has proved to be a great blunder, they should realise that their proposed new stand in 1986 to support PAS will be an even greater blunder.
Yesterday, the Perak PAS CCC released a three-word ‘Yes, No, Yes’ reply from the PAS National Vise President, Haji Nakhaie, as proof that in a PAS Government, there would be justice, equality and fairness.
This must be the only time in Malaysian history, in fact in world politics, that anyone is prepared to commin his future and that of future generations on a three-word ‘Yes, No, Yes’, which, on examination, means nothing.
PAS Perak CCC claims that the three-word ‘Yes, No, Yes’ letter should assure Malaysian Chinese about the virtues of an Islamic State advocated by PAS.
I am not surprised that the PAS CCC people are so gullible, but I am shocked that these Gerakan- Tung/ Chiau Chung elements seem equally gullible.
PAS CCC contends that the Malaysian Chinese have nothing to fear from an Islamic State as advocated by PAS, as like it or not, the Malaysian Chinese are already living in an Islamic State of UMNO on the claim of some UMNO leaders.
But PAS CCC seems to ignore the fact that PAS leaders like Haji Abdul Hadi Awang and Haji Nakhaie have publicly and repeatedly repudiated the Islamisation process of UMNO as fraudulent and unacceptable.
PAS leaders have also openly repudiated the democratic principle of sovereignty of the people and the right of the majority to rule, on the ground that in an Islamic State, it is the Koran which provides the sovereignty and legitimacy of power, and the right does not come with majority representation in Parliament but from the Koran.
In fact, both Haji Awang and Haji Nakhaie have gone on public record as stating that in an Islamic State, only Muslims could be Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Ministers, in conformity with the concept that only those cersed in the Islamic faith would be allowed to occupy the key positions in the Legislative, executive and judicial branches to implication of the PAS concept of an Islamic state.
But what Malaysian Chinese should be worried us the immediate after- effects if the coming general elections.
Nobody, whether PAS, PAS CCC even the Gerakan/ Tung/ Chiau Chung elements. expect PAS to be in a position to form the Government by increasing its present one MP to 91 MPs to form the next Federal Government.
However, if there are sufficient Chinese voters who accept the theory of these Gerakan/ Tung/ Chiau Chung elements about a ‘Two Party State’ and give support to the PAS and PAS CCC candidates, to the extend of denying support to the DAP, the UMNO would be able to use this as an excuse to launch M alaysia onto the path of an Islamic State.
PAS leaders, like PAS president Haji Yusuf Rawa and Haji Nakhaie have again publicli stated that if UMNO would adhere to the Islamic State and Islamic Constitution objectives, PAS could dissolve and join UMNO in the Islamic struggle.
I do not rule out the possibility that if UMNO offers Pas its hard of co-operation to implent an Islamic State objective with the initial 30 per cent content, PAS would reciprocate favourably striking a compromise between UMNO’s present 2% Islamisation and PAS’s 100% Islamic State.
This is why from the Islamists’ long-term point of view, the PAS CCC and the tendency of certain Tung/ Chiau Chung elements to give support to PAS is welcome, for this would create conditions in the medium and long term favourable to the pursuit of an Islamic State and Islamic Constitution in Malaysia! And we must never forget that those who want to set up an Islamic State and an Islamic
Constitution are not only to be found in PAS, but in UMNO as well.
There is a graeat danger therefore that the Gerakan-Tung Chiau Chung elements, for their own selfish political calculations, may be opening the floodgates for an Islamic State in Malaysia in the coming general elections, just as they opened the floodgastes for an ‘One language, One culture’ Policy in the 1982 general elections.
The DAP had always held the Tung/ Chiau Chung in the highest esteem and regfard for iuts endeavours on behalf of chinesed education and the Chinese community. But we cannot understnd why there are a handful who right from the beginning had been most hostile to the DAP, most notably Ker Choo Ting.
In 1980 and 1981, when DAP malcontents like Chan Teck Chan falsely accused the DAP leadership and myself of persecutting the Chinese-educated inside the Party, the Tung/ Chiau Chung leaders lent a willing ear to their complaints. But when I wanted to meet the same Tung/ Chiau Chung leaders to explain the true involved in the DAP’s internal affairs. Then why did they meet Chan Teck Chan in the first place to give him symphathetic hearing and support?
These are the people who in 1982 general elections confronted the DAP with their ‘Attack into the BN to recrify the BN’ strategy, causing the disastrous defeat of the DAP in the elections.
These are also the people who are trying to defeat the DAP by other means in the coming elections. They have three cards to play. The first is to giving support to the PAS or PAS CCC against the DAP, purportedly in pursuance of their ‘Two Party System’ theory in Malaysia. The second card is to use the Chinese Political Declaration and the Chinese Organisation Civic Rights Committee as a vehicle to play Tung/ Chiau Chung’s role as in the 1982 general elections. The thrid card is to come out with the slogan of ‘Elect Persons and not Party’.
What these Gerakaan/ Tung/ Chiau Chung elements will get from such a confrontationm, I do not know, although it is obvious that the biggest beneficiaries will be the Gerakan, and even MCA and Barisan Nasional, for the DAP may suffer an even greater defeat than in 1982 general elections with Barisan Nasional saving not merely its two-third majority, but returned with greater landslide victory.
For the interest of Chinese education and the Chinese community, the DAP is prepared to co-operate with Tung/ Chiau Chung again, but we must be assured that we will not be stabbed at the back as happened in the 1982 general elections.
We are also to co-operate with the Chinese Organisations Civic Rights Committee, but again we cannot but the cautions that we will not be bitten a second time, as happened in the 1982 general elections.
DAP to launch a nation-wode campaign to defend basic parental rights over their children and to protect their family unit integrity by way of mass signature petition for Constitutional amendment.
The Susie Teod Case, where the Kota Bahru High Court decided that non-Muslim parents have no right to determine the religion of their monor children(below 18 years) and could not stop them from being converted into Islam without parental consent or knowledge, shows how precarious are the rights of parents under the Constitution.
Recently, cases of non-Muslim parents losing custody and guardship of their children, both boys and girls, are becoming more and more frequent, this is because their children, below 18 year, are simply taken away from their parents and family, coerced into Islam and all family contacts are cut off, and in Susie’s Case, sprited away and just dissapeared with all claming ignorance of her wherebouts.
I just cannot understand how in our country with the whole apparatus of police and security services, it could be so easy for minors into Islam to disappear.
If non-Muslim parents do not have the constitutional and legal rights to stop cases like Ng Yee Kuan and Susie Teoh cases from happening , then there will be a lot of non-Muslim family break-ups, social disharmony, even racial and religious tension and national disunity.
The DAP has decided to launch a nation-wide campaign to defend the basic parental rights of non-Muslim over their children and to protect the integrity of their family unit. This campaign would be spearheaded by DAP National Vice Chairman, Dr. Tan Seng Giaw, who will announce the details of the campaign in the next few days.
Tan Koon Swan said in Kuala Terengganu yesterday that MCA Cabinet Ministers dare to take up issues affecting the Malaysian Chinese, but they have not dared to raise the Susie Teoh case in Cabinet last Wednesday.
Although the Supreme Court will have to hear the appeal of Susie Teoh’s father, Teoh Eng Huat, against the decision of the Kota Bahru High Court, the Cabinet should give a undertaking that if the Supreme Court endores the Kota Bahru High Court decision, the Constitution would be amended to prevent Ng Yee Kuan and Susie Teoh cases from recurring.
The purpose of the DAP national is mobilise public support for such a constitutional amendment in the Supreme Court agrees with the Kota Bahru High Court that non-Muslim parents have no way to protect their children from being taken away on grounds of voluntary conversion to Islam.
In fact, according to the Kota Bahru High Court judge, Mr. Justice Haji Malek, under the ‘Kukum Syarak’ (Muslim Law), any child who is 15 years or has reached the age of puberty (for a girl it could be as early as 12 or 11 years), can be converted to Islam without parental consent or knowledge.
The DAP nation-wide campaign to defend parental rights and integrity of family unit will include a nation-wide signature petition for Canstitutional amendment to spell out clearly the invioable rights of parents to the custody and control of their children below 18 years from any form of interference whatsoever, such as coerced conversion to Islam.