19 February 2017

Press statement by MCA Publicity Bureau Chairman Dato’ Chai Kim Sen


Although conceding DAP aided PAS, Lim Kit Siang is shamelessly refuses to apologise

Although DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang has finally admitted that the Rocket had asked voters to support PAS candidates in GE13, he shamelessly refuses to apologise and even has the audacity to demand that former DAP-turned-Independent MP for Kota Melaka Sim Tong Hin withdraw his apology for asking voters to support PAS candidates in GE13. Such stubbornness indicates that Kit Siang and the entire DAP have lost whatever shred of conscience that they could salvage.

Kit Siang gives the excuse that “DAP’s stand in calling for voter support for all Pakatan Rakyat candidates in 2013 GE was right and proper as all PR parties had agreed to a Common Policy Framework (Lim Kit Siang peech at the DAP Johore State lunch in Yong Peng on 18 Feb 2017),” thereby justifying innocence on DAP’s canvassing for voter support for the hardline party. The Gelang Patah MP is deliberately trying to divert attention away from DAP’s folly of empowering PAS, whilst trying to strengthen a crashing Rocket, now blames PAS instead, to shirk DAP’s responsibility.

First of all, what is the Pakatan Rakyat’s Common Policy Framework? To non-Muslims, DAP claims to “battle for democracy, justice, equality and for a united multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious nation in Malaysia.” However, from the onset, PAS has said that they would never abandon their mission of establishing an Islamic state or implementing hudud criminal codes. Has PAS ever expressed an identical position which DAP claims to fight for?  Since GE13 on 5 May 2013, neither Kit Siang nor DAP have been able to answer this issue.

Secondly, since DAP inked the Common Policy Framework with PAS prior to GE13, both DAP and PAS had agreed that each party retained their respective right to pursue their respective goal which in PAS’ case, involves establishing an Islamic state. This agreement was signed by DAP Secretary General Lim Guan Eng and PAS President Dato’ Seri Hadi Awang.

It is a cardinal sin for DAP on one hand, to have reached a written agreement with PAS, for the latter to pursue its goal of setting up a theocratic state; but on the other hand, conveyed to non-Muslim electorates that PAS had given up its plans for a theocratic state in exchange for a welfare state. If this is not deception to non-Muslim constituents, then what is?

When Sim Tong Hin and three other elected representatives announced their departure from DAP, they immediately extended their apologies:

We have an obligation towards our voters and the Chinese community. All four of us want to apologise for misleading the people to support PAS as a moderate party in the last general election. We want to say sorry in our personal capacity as we can no longer speak on behalf of the DAP (The Star, 13 Feb 2017).

Their collective apology evinces their basic political conscience and shame, recognising that DAP had aggrandised PAS. Unfortunately, neither Kit Siang nor the Rocket hold any similar values to these four Malaccan elected representatives.

Senator Dato’ Chai Kim Sen
MCA Publicity Bureau Chairman
MCA Deputy National Organising Secretary

-MCA online-