UMNO and PAS leaders should stop their delusion to justify the MCA/UMNO/PAS unholy alliance in-the-making when the real intent of the unholy pact is purely for the selfish interests of UMNO and PAS leaders.

A PAS leader has said that the PAS’ increased vote share at the Seri Setia by-election yesterday showed that further cooperation between BN and PAS was worth exploring.

He said Harapan’s popular vote had deteriorated whereas PAS had made significant inroads.

On the other hand, an UMNO leader said that the doubling of votes for the PAS candidate in GE14 from 4,563 votes to the 9,698 received by PAS by-election candidate Dr Halimah Ali was proof that Malays approve of the cooperation between Umno and the Islamist party.

These are dishonest delusions by the PAS and UMNO leaders, as the UMNO and PAS leaders are using different yardsticks for the comparison of the two polls, when what must compared are the votes secured by the PAS candidate in the by-election with the total votes polled by the UMNO and PAS candidates in the 14GE as PAS and UMNO had co-operated as one platform in the by-election as compared to the 14GE when they each fielded separate candidates.

The UMNO leader was not being honest in claiming that the PAS candidate in Seri Setia Dr. Halimah Ali had doubled the votes polled by the PAS candidate in the 14GE, when her vote should be compared against the total combined votes secured by the UMNO candidate (9,878 votes) and the PAS candidate (4,563 votes), i.e. a total of 14,441 votes.

As PAS and UMNO had jointly campaigned for voter support in the Seri Setia by-election, what Halimah got was 9,698 out of 14,441 votes – or only two-thirds of what PAS and UMNO polled in the 14GE.

In fact, Halimah’s vote of 9,698 votes was less than the 9,878 votes secured by the UMNO candidate in Seri Setia in the 14GE, raising the question why UMNO gave way to PAS to contest in the Seri Setia by-election when the UMNO candidate had more than double the votes of the PAS candidate in the 14GE!

When PAS leader claimed that Pakatan Harapan votes had deteriorated, he had simply ignored fact the voter turnout deteriorated from 84% to 44%.

The reason why UMNO/BN had been rejected by the Malaysian electorate in the 14GE was because the UMNO/BN leaders caused Malaysia to becomr a global kleptocracy, and in the four months after the 14GE, the UMNO/BN leaders (including MCA leaders) had not made any apology for the 1MDB kleptocracy, showing that MCA/UMNO/BN are not capable of reform to become honest and constructive opposition parties.

Under such circumstances, why are the PAS leaders advocating an unholy alliance with the UMNO leaders?

Or are the PAS leaders under the PAS President, Datuk Hadi Awang, advocating Islamic kleptocracy?

(Speech by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang at a youth dialogue at LYM Café, Skudai on Sunday, 9th September 2018 at 3 pm)