KUALA LUMPUR – The Malays face trust issues with DAP because the party’s top brass is not transparent with its Malay members, its former vice-chairman Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim claimed.
Commenting on the ongoing debate behind the predominantly Chinese party’s frustrated efforts to woo the Muslim-majority Malay votes despite claiming diversity, Tunku Aziz said when he was a member, he did not even know how many Malays belonged to the party.
“When I was in DAP, I did not know how many Malays were party members because they operate in a very secretive manner,” Tunku Aziz, former Transparency International Malaysia vice-chairman, told The Vibes.
It’s not really an open organisation, so because of that, Malays have found it difficult to trust DAP. Other than one or two people, it’s not likely that Malays will be swarming to the party.”
The former senator said the party has faced long-standing distrust from the Malay community because it does not walk its talk.
He added that the Malays remain “extremely suspicious” of DAP politics, seeing that their claim as a multiracial party is more “rhetoric than factual practice”.
“There have been so many examples where Malays have not been given any meaningful role in the party,” Tunku Aziz said.
Yesterday, DAP central working committee member Ronnie Liu Tian Khiew was reported to have said that DAP needs to undergo a major overhaul of its leadership and operations to shed its Chinese image and garner the support of the Malay majority.
Liu’s view was supported by political analysts who believed the party needed Malays within its top-tier ranks to gain the confidence of the community.
They said that this would, in turn, increase the chances of DAP being in the federal government again.
On the move to provide meaningful and high positions for Malays within the organisation, Tunku Aziz said Bumiputeras stand very little or no chance at making it to the top, especially during party elections.
“In my case, for example, I was put in the central working committee (by appointment). But I stood for elections. I would not have been elected to that position,” he said.
“It’s one thing to talk about multiculturalism and multiracialism, etc in their politics, but it is essentially a one-race party that has token representation for Indians and an unknown number of Malays,” he said.
‘Malays would vote for Chinese, but not vice-versa’
Tunku Aziz said the groundswell for DAP comes from the Chinese community, with its influential former secretary-general and chairman Lim Kit Siang revealing that more than 95% of Chinese votes went to the party.
He claimed that the Chinese community has never really voted for candidates from another ethnic group, while the Malays have proven their support for Chinese candidates from MCA and Barisan Nasional.
“A Malay has yet to receive any meaningful support from DAP,” Tunku Aziz opined.
This is one of the problems we are having now in the country, where many people say we should forget race-based politics, but in practice, it will never go away until all the races are prepared to make concessions.”
The 87-year-old Tunku Aziz was an established corporate figure and anti-corruption activist prior to joining DAP in 2008, before being appointed as a senator in Dewan Negara.
However, in 2012, Tunku Aziz resigned from the party after it refused to extend his term in the senate, due to his opposition of DAP’s support for the Bersih 3.0 protests.
He also noted that DAP’s uncompromising stance on policies such as vernacular schools is a “great barrier” to securing Malay support.
At the same time, the former party member observed that for the foreseeable future, race-based politics will remain in Malaysia.
Asked whether he would throw support behind the current DAP, Tunku Aziz pulled no punches, saying: “Absolutely not. The answer is ‘no’ because it is promoting activities that are totally against my own beliefs.
“For example, promoting street demonstrations even when it was very clear to it that City Hall, for example, declared that Dataran Merdeka was not meant to be used for this purpose, and yet it (DAP) encouraged anyone to turn up there.
“If you are a lawmaker, you don’t become a lawbreaker, and I will not subscribe to breaking the law. It’s as simple as that. I don’t think I’ll ever support it (again). I’ve completely forgotten about it.” – The Vibes, November 14, 2021
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