It is a strange phenomenon indeed – the foes and critics of Rocket, and even DAP traitors, have become the greatest champions of the Rocket!

Suddenly, we have UMNO/BN leaders, propagandists and quinoa cybertroopers and their publications protesting against the decision of the DAP Central Executive Committee, backed by state and branch leaders at meetings convened in the past week, that the DAP had betrayed its political objectives and principles when deciding not to use the Rocket symbol in the 14th General Election but instead to use the Pakatan Harapan common logo, which is PKR’s blue-eyes symbol.

At one end of the spectrum, DAP is accused of having sold itself to Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, not forgetting another UMNO/BN cybertrooper allegation that I had been paid RM1 billion by Mahathir to allow PPBM to join Pakatan Harapan; while at the other end of spectrum, the DAP is being accused of using Mahathri to split the Malay votes.

MCA President, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai alleged at the launch of the MCA’s 14GE Manifesto that DAP has betrayed the Malaysian Chinese electorate, and that “When Mahathir appears, the Rocket disappears”!

But this did not prevent UMNO leaders, like the Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism Minister, Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin, from advising PPBM members not to get “too excited” over the naming of Tun Mahathir as Pakatan Harapan’s Prime Minister-designate, on the ground if Pakatan Harapan do win the 14GE, the pact’s main choice for the prime minister would be Lim Kit Siang and not Mahathir.

When the UMNO/BN coalition can one and at the same time accuse me as stooge of Mahathir and Mahathir as my stooge, it has lost all moral compass, credibility and authority with its schizophrenic and Janus-like stances.

The DAP decision not to use the Rocket symbol is not an easy one. I had used the Rocket logo for 11 general elections and one by-election since 1968.

I do not deny that I have shed tears over the decision, just as have other DAP leaders – so dear and close we hold the Rocket symbol.

But we have to overcome the personal pain and agony not to use the Rocket symbol so as to use the Pakatan Harapan common logo of PKR’s blue-eyes – an affirmation that the time has come for all Malaysians regardless of race, religion, region or even political party, including the 3.6 million UMNO members and one million PAS members, to unite in the 14th General Election on May 9, 2018 to Save Malaysia from a failed, rogue and kleptocratic state.

(Speech (2) at the opening of the DAP 14th GE Bootcamp in Damansara on Thursday, April 12, 2018 at 9.30 am)