The boastful declaration by the Barisan Nasional MP for Kinabatangan, Bung Moktar Radin in Parliament yesterday admitting that UMNO division leaders demanded contracts from the government and anyone who did not do so were cowards is the latest outrageous statement from Barisan Nasional Ministers, leaders and supporters in the past six weeks since the 13th general election results on May 5, 2013.
Other instances of such outrageous statements by BN Ministers/leaders/supporters in the past six weeks include:
• Deputy Agriculture Minister Datuk Tajuddin Abdul Rahman’s desecration of Ramadan politics on Sunday night by spouting the most irresponsible and reckless lies in the Kuala Besut by-election campaign alleging that DAP is anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-Malay Rulers, out to abolish the system of constitutional monarchy and the Sultanate so as to establish a republic with Karpal Singh as Malaysia’s first President; • Minister in Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Shahidan Kassim’s interview with Sin Chew Daily last month where he gave the gratuitous and misguided advice that the Chinese in Malaysia should break away from the “extreme racism” indoctrinated by the DAP so that “Malaysia would one day have a Prime Minister of Chinese ethnicity”. Shahidan was doubly wrong as DAP had never indoctrinated the Chinese in Malaysia with any “extreme racism” and secondly, the issue of a Chinese Prime Minister was never on the radar of any Malaysian Chinese as the issue had never been whether a Chinese can be Prime Minister but whether the country has a Prime Minister for all Malaysians. • The mythology of a DAP-funded “Red Bean Army” of 3,000 cybertroopers with a budget of RM100 million to RM1 billion in past six years to character-assassinate and demonise Umno/BN leaders which dominated the speeches of Umno/BN MPs in the royal address debate in Parliament, with even a Cabinet Minister proposing that the Cabinet consider a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the mythical “Red Bean Army” when the proper subject of an RCI would be into the consistent racist, inflammatory and seditious lies and provocations in the past four years by Umno/BN controlled media, particularly Utusan Malaysia. Lately, this pack of lies about DAP’s funded “Red Bean Army” is used to justify demand for a RM350 million allocation by UMNO/BN cybertroopers to fight the mythical “Red Bean Army” in the next five years. • The apologetic response of “corruption is just not peculiar to Malaysia” of Paul Low, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of integrity and good governance, to the 2013 Transparency International Global Corruption Barometer survey that only 31 per cent of respondents thought the Malaysian government had been effective in fighting corruption, down from 49 per cent in 2011. • The repeated racist fulminations by former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir to aggravate racial polarisation with lies and falsehoods, as falsely accusing the DAP of rejecting the concept of Malay/Chinese/Indian “kongsi”, mischievously and maliciously alleging that the Chinese want to oust the political power of the Malays. • The racist and seditious speech by former Court of Appeal judge Mohd Noor Abdullah warning that the Chinese Malaysians must be prepared for a backlash from the Malay community for their “betrayal” in the 13th general elections. • The initial statement by Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi on becoming Home Minister telling critics of the 13th general elections to leave the country if they do not like the country’s electoral system.
All these statements and pronouncements, if uncontradicted, point to a future direction of the country which is inimical to the development of a united, harmonious, progressive, competitive and prosperous Malaysia – the very opposite of the aspirations of a 1Malaysia, “Global Movement of Moderates” and “national reconciliation”.
Quo Vadis, Malaysia?