BUTTERWORTH – DAP has blasted its former short-term ally and now foe again, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, accusing him of exploiting race and religion to further put a wedge between Malaysians.
Party secretary-general Anthony Loke said that as a statesman, the 97-year-old should be a figure who unites rather than divides.
In one of the party’s most intense criticisms of Dr Mahathir, Loke took the former prime minister of 24 years to task for resorting to issues of ethnicity and faith to “divide and rule” the multiracial country of Malaysia.
“We are disappointed with Dr Mahathir. He should know better than to undermine a national unity government with such a narrative,” he said at the Penang DAP convention at Butterworth Arena here today.
Mahathir is scheduled to attend an event billed as a “Malay Proclamation”, where he is expected to hold a press conference in Kuala Lumpur.
The event, where Dr Mahathir was to decry the alleged loss of Malay power to a multiracial government, was cancelled as the booking venue withdrew.
He was an arch-rival of DAP during his first tenure as prime minister from 1981 to 2003 before becoming a DAP ally from 2018 until 2020 when he led the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government.
Loke, who is presently transport minister, held the same government position under Dr Mahathir in that short-lived cabinet.
The government collapsed when Dr Mahathir resigned as prime minister in February 2020, and some PH ministers and MPs defected from PKR to Bersatu.
DAP is back in federal power after PH, led by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, formed a national unity government with Barisan Nasional and parties from Sabah and Sarawak following the 15th general election in November last year.
Loke, who officiated at the Penang DAP convention, said that the party is aggrieved to see the approach taken by the nonagenarian.
“Instead of trying to split the country he should be a statesman, and instead of damaging the country, he should be trying to pull in investments,” Loke said.
Dr Mahathir should preach unity so that the country can progress and move on after almost five years of political uncertainty, said the transport minister.
Earlier, DAP chairman LIm Guan Eng rubbished the notion that Malays face being marginalised in Malaysia, as has been alleged.
He told some 1,000 DAP delegates that Malays form the dominant force in the country through the political front.
Rattling out figures, Lim said that out of 28 full ministers, only nine are not Malay-Muslims.
“So who is the dominant group?” he asked.
Of the 188 national unity coalition MPs, 77 are Malay Muslims while 72 others are from the opposition Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition.
“This shows that the unity government has more Malay-Muslim MPs than PN. So what is the issue they are harping on?” said Lim, who is Bagan MP.
Lim accused PN of resorting to lies and slander to try to wrest power from the unity government, led by Anwar as prime minister. – The Vibes, March 19, 2023
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