The Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, is confessing the failure of the Barisan Nasional government’s nation-building policies under Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak in the past five years when he suggested “Another May 13 is not impossible” during a Ramadan event in Pagoh, Johore yesterday.

Najib’s failure will be all the more conspicuous as it would also mean the total failure of his 1Malaysia policy to create a Malaysia where Malaysians regard themselves as Malaysians first as their race, religion and region second – which had been publicly repudiated by Muhyiddin right from the beginning – and his Global Movement of Moderates campaign, both national and international, for “the voices of moderation to drown the voices of extremism”.

The UMNO mouthpiece, Utusan Malaysia, gave the headline “Tidak mustahil 13 Mei 1969 berulang – TPM” for Muhyiddin’s speech yesterday, where he said that ethnic tensions that were allowed to simmer would lead to unrest when the various communities start to eye each other with suspicion.

“Because of that there exist all kinds of assumptions when ethnic ties become strained and unhealthy. This can cause that event and I do not want to mention the particular date,” he was quoted as saying by Malay language daily Utusan Malaysia.

Muhyiddin did not mention the date specifically but Utusan Malaysia inserted May 13, 1969 to his quote in parentheses.

The first duty of any Federal government in Malaysia, whether Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat, is to ensure that another May 13 is not possible in Malaysia, and a Malaysian federal government which allowed ethnic ties to deteriorate until the Deputy Prime Minister could publicly suggest that “another May 13 is not impossible” has lost all moral and political justification to continue to rule the country.

On Muhyiddin’s statement in Pagon alone, the Cabinet and the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council should be convened in emergency session for the country is faced with the most critical situation in 45 years if a Deputy Prime Minister could publicly say that “Another May 13 is not impossible” – as no Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister in Malaysia would have made such a statement in the past four decades.

Will any Cabinet Minister requisition the convening of an emergency Cabinet meeting or turn next Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting into a special session to discuss Muhyiddin’s warning in Pagoh – and to tell Malaysians whether the Cabinet endorses Muhyiddin’s warning and what it proposes to do to save Malaysia from another May 13?

Will any component party of Barisan Nasional, a coalition of 14 parties, requisition an emergency meeting of the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council to discuss the grave situation reflected in Muhyiddin’s Pagoh speech?

If there is not going to be any emergency meeting of the Cabinet and the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council over the Deputy Prime Minister’s warning in Pagoh, then the next question to be asked is whether Muhyiddin was just giving legitimacy to a small group of extremists responsible for the worst racial and religious polarization in the nation’s history in the past year as a result of incessant incitement of racial and religious hatred, conflict and tension with periodic threats of another May 13?