The question swirling in the minds of Malaysians is whether the MCA leadership, starting with the MCA President, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, has lost confidence in the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, believing that Barisan Nasional would lose in the 14th General Election on May 9, 2018 that MCA is putting up the photograph of the China’s President, Xi Jinping on MCA billboards instead of that of Najib?
This is the latest sign of the political bankruptcy of MCA.
But what is shocking is the rude and inexcusable action of the Election Commission tearing out the image of Malaysia’s longest-serving Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad – the most blatant being the Election Commission’s action this morning cutting out Mahathir’s image from the billboard in Ayer Hitam, which had displayed the photographs of DAP/Pakatan Harapan candidate, Liew Ching Tong on the right, Tun Mahathir at the centre and the DAP/PH candidate for Yong Peng state assembly seat, Chew Pek Choo on the left.
I do not believe that the enforcement officers are happy at all in carrying out the most unreasonable and excessive orders to cut out Mahathir’s image from the election billboard, and the Prime Minister must explain why government servants are forced to do such an unpopular and unreasonable directive.
In my 52 years of political activities, I have not come across the majority of civil servants – who now constitute 1.6 million of the population – are so restive and unprepared to blindly follow the government’s directives, and I dare believe that what happened today – to arbitrarily cut out the image of Mahathir from Pakatan Harapan election billboards – will further antagonize the majority of civil servants (excluding of course the top echelon of civil servants).
I call on Najib to send a clear and unmistakable directive, with him setting the example, that the 14th General Election should be a clean, fair and honest one, and that there should be no resort to the irresponsible politics of race, fear and hatred and that this should also be observed by all government authorities, including the Election Commission.
(Speech in Bahau on Monday, 29th April 2018 at 5 pm)