(Speech by Lim Kit Siang at the launching of the DAP Ipoh Timur general election operations centre at Jalan Kampar, Ipoh on Thursday, 21st February 2008 at 11.30 am)
This is the launching of the operations centre for the DAP Ipoh Timur parliamentary constituency for the 12th general election on March 8, 2008.
In another two days on Sunday, 24th February 2008, the curtain raises for what I would describe as the “Electoral Battle of the Century” as the March 8 election will decide not just the future of Malaysia for the next five years, but what Malaysia is going to be in 2020 and the next half-century of our nationhood.
It is going to be the most important general election not only in 51 years but 100 years of Malaysia – with many Malaysians waiting for the outcome of March 8 polls to decide whether there is still hope for change in Malaysia and to fully commit the rest of their lives to the building of a great Malaysian nation which can take its proud, proper and rightful place in the global arena in the face of the challenges of globalization or despair that there is no hope for the future in this land of our birth and spark another debilitating brain drain of the best and brightest to benefit foreign countries – which have already seen the exodus and brain-drain of one-to-two million Malaysian talents as a consequence of the New Economic Plan, causing Malaysia to rapidly fall behind not only Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea but in danger of being overtaken by Vietnam, Thailand and horror of horrors Indonesia.
In short, what the Electoral Battle of the Century is all about – Is there hope for change in Malaysia whether 2020 or next 50 years or one can only despair about the future of a great nation which has lost its way!
What are the great and critical choices in the hands of the 11 million voters on March 8, 2008?
A full adumbration of the issues at stake in the historic March 8 general election will fill volumes as we are the real watershed of Malaysian history.
Let me just limit myself to five issues, which I call the “Five Cs to make Malaysia great and for all Malaysians to be able to stand tall again and proud to be a Malaysian”!
• Crime – for Malaysia to be a safe country again for her citizens – men, women and children – visitors, tourists and investors. No more child victims Sharlinie Mohd Nahar and Nurin Jazlin,
• Corruption – After four years of Pak Lah as “Justice Bao”, Malaysia’s corruption problem is nationally and internationally acknowledged as even worse than the times of “nepotism, corruption and cronyism” of the Mahathir era, a fact publicly acknowledged by Tun Mahathir himself as well as testified by the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index, plunging from No. 37 in 2003 to No. 43 in 2007, and heading south towards No. 50!
• Cost of Living – Inflation and increasing economic hardships of the people camouflaged by an oil bonanza to government coffers with the price of crude oil again shooting above US100 per barrel and good commodity aggravating the divide between the haves and have-nots as well as accountability and integrity in the disbursement of billions of public funds and mega-billion contracts.
• International Competitiveness – Continued decline in Malaysia’s international competitiveness from refusal to give top priority to “meritocracy coupled with need” to ensure efficiency and justice in education , economy, civil service and nation-building which are the preconditions for the creation of First-World Parliament and world-class judiciary, universities, civil service and police force to position the country as a developed nation with “First World Infrastructure, First-World Mentality”.
• Merdeka Constitution and Social Contract – to return to the Merdeka Constitution and 1957 Social Contract that Malaysia is a democratic, multi-racial and multi-religious nation with Islam as the official religion but not an Islamic state, which suffered the most rapid and drastic erosion in the past four years as evidenced by the rise of Little Napoleons and Little Mullah Napoleons in the schools, universities and public service completely insensitive and dismissive of Malaysia as a nation of diverse races, languages, cultures and religions.
These are among the great and critical issues which will be decided in the March 8 general election.
I should have helped to spell out these great and critical issues before the 11 million voters in 16 days’ time, like:
• The first great financial scandal in the Abdullah premiership, the RM4.6 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) bailout scandal – which is even bigger than the first great financial scandal of the Mahathir premiership, the RM2.5 billion Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF) scandal in the early eighties. Also for the first time, the mega billion-ringgit financial scandals in the country come under the direct responsibility of MCA Minister of Transport, who is the MCA Deputy President Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy.
• The shame for two decades of a judiciary which lost national and international confidence in its independence, integrity and quality – with the rot in the judicial system fully exposed by the recent though restricted public hearings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Lingam Tape.
• The dropout of Malaysian universities, including the nation’s premier university, University of Malaya, from world’s top 100, 200 or even 500 universities, according to various reputable international university rankings and surveys.
• Unprecedented national disunity and division from alarming insensitivity to Malaysia as a plural society with diverse races, religious, languages and cultures, illustrated by holding of general election during the Chinese New Year, the holding of Umno general assembly on Deepavali, the unrepentant wielding of the Malay keris by Umno Youth leader, Datuk Seri Hishammudin Hussein at Umno General Assemblies, body snatchings, bible-banning and restrictions on building of places of worship by the proposed tallest Mazu statue in Kudat, Sabah. Thanks to such insensitivity, there is no Chinese New Year for me and Malaysians – no Day of Ren on the 7th Day of Chinese New Year, no Pai Tian Kong on 9th Day or Chap Goh Mei today.
In fact, I thank many Malaysians for reminding and wishing me Happy Birthday yesterday – for I had completely forgotten about it!
And there is a very very long list of issues which are very very wrong with Malaysia although we have just celebrated the nation’s 50th Merdeka anniversary.