Yesterday, I publicly said that MCA and UMNO leaders have reached a “Devil’s Compact” for each side to tell the most blatant lies and falsehoods to frighten Chinese and Malay voters respectively in their desperate belief that such politics of hate and duplicity is the only way to stampede Chinese and Malay voters to vote for Barisan Nasional in the 13th General Election.

I had expected MCA and UMNO leaders and their propagandists to embark on prolonged polemics to deny the existence of such an unholy compact and to throw up all sorts of “red herrings” to distract attention from the “Devil’s Compact”.

What I least expected was for my expose of UMNO/MCA’s “Devil’s Compact” to be confirmed within 24 hours in a most authoritative fashion and in a manner completely disarming and stripping the MCA and UMNO leaders and propagandists bare of their wiles and hypocrisies.

There is only one person who could perform such a feat – Tun Dr. Mahathir and this was exactly what he did yesterday.

At a media conference yesterday at the Universiti Malaya symposium “Inter-civilisation dialogue towards peace, harmonious co-existence and sustainability”, Mahathir admitted that MCA’s “hardline stance” against hudud law at last weekend’s MCA General Assembly was merely aimed at “scaring” the Chinese community and was not aimed at the Malays or Muslims.

Mahathir said:

“Their purpose is to frighten the Chinese, not the Malays or Muslims… MCA wants to scare the Chinese so they will shun DAP.

“In the past, MCA never objected when we declared this country to be an Islamic state and that we will practice Islamic values.”

Yesterday, in a written reply in Parliament, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Senator Datuk Sri Jamil Khir Baharom said that if hudud laws are implemented in Malaysia, they will not have any implications on non-Muslims.

The MCA President Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek and the four MCA Ministers should explain whether Jamil’s answer represents the stand of MCA in Cabinet and the Barisan Nasional, and if not, what are they going to do about it.

Mahathir’s confirmation that UMNO and MCA have a “Devil’s Compact” where each side can tell the most blatant lies and falsehoods to respectively frighten Malay and Chinese voters and stampede them to vote for Barisan Nasional deserve the serious attention and strongest condemnation of all Malaysians.

In their “Devil’s Compact”, UMNO leaders keep their silence regardless of the lies disseminated by MCA leaders “to scare the Chinese”, including falsehoods which UMNO leaders know are utterly baseless, such as MCA defamation of PAS and Islam for condoning rape of non-Muslims or for trying to set Malaysia back to the “Dark Ages”.

Similarly, MCA leaders keep their silence although they do not believe UMNO lies and falsehoods “to scare the Malays”, that DAP wants to create a Christian Malaysia, abolish the Malay Rulers and set up a Republic!

I am reminded of a general surgeon’s blog yesterday commenting on the 59th MCA General Assembly, who concluded:

“In fact the MCA General Assembly may have struck the final nail to its coffin as to most Malaysians, the MCA has become irrelevant, so is Gerakan, MIC and to some extent Umno. The demise of these race based parties may be a blessing in disguise as we need multi-racial parties to move forwards to survive in a globalized and highly competitive world.”

This is the greatest challenge for all Malaysian voters in the 13GE, whether we are to move forwards as Malaysians with a common vision of hope and optimism that Malaysians united as one people regardless of race, religion, class or territory is the best guarantee for the country to stand tall to compete with the rest of the world or we allow ourselves to wallow in the politics of corruption and greed sowing inter-racial and inter-religious hatred, suspicion and distrust through lies and falsehoods which will only condemn the country to the trajectory of a failed state.

Pakatan Rakyat stands for the former to unite all Malaysians to forge a common destiny while Barisan Nasional stands for the latter, persisting in its “divide-and-rule” tactics among the different racial and religious groups to continue to serve the interests of the Umno-putras and their cronies.

Let the demise of the race-based parties reach its high-water mark in the 13GE.

Pakatan Rakyat stands for the future while Barisan Nasional represents the past!