GE13: DAP’s ‘Chinese racism’

Tun Dr Mahathir is still going all out to accuse the DAP of playing on racial sentiments. He said today that the results of Election 2013 demonstrate “Chinese racism”, which he alleged was fanned by the DAP to ensure the community’s domination of Malaysian politics. The influential former Prime Minister’s accusation against the DAP reflects the strident tone of the right-wing elements in UMNO, as several politicians from the ruling party and the party’s mouthpiece Utusan Malaysia continue to frame the May 5th polls as a Chinese-vs-Malay vote. “The DAP playing on racial sentiments drew the Chinese away from BN by depicting the MCA as lackeys of UMNO,” Dr Mahathir wrote on his blog chedet.cc 6th June. “If today the schism between the races is deeper, it is because the DAP reject the Malay/Chinese/Indian ‘kongsi... Racial polarisation has become more pronounced as a result. It will become more so in the future’,” he added, referring to BN’s power-sharing concept among its race-based component parties. Dr Mahathir also claimed that the majority of protesters at Pakatan Pembangkang’s (PP) recent rallies against electoral fraud are Chinese youths. “If more proof is needed of the role of Chinese racism in the 13th GE, the demonstrations accusing the BN of fraud and cheating in the elections, despite being organised by Anwar and the PKR, are largely attended by Chinese, especially the young,” said Dr Mahathir, referring to Opposition Leader Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. “The protests seem to be mainly a Chinese affair,” he added. “Although DAP and PKR participated in these demos, PAS members were noticeably absent”. The country’s longest-serving Prime Minister said that the May 5th General Election showed that “the quality of the candidates or parties, the ideologies and the desire for change will always be secondary to race”. Analysts, however, have debunked Prime Minister Dato' Sri Najib Razak’s claim of a “Chinese tsunami” in the 13th General Election, noting that the middle-class and urban electorate had deserted BN across racial lines. They noted that BN retained federal power on the back of rural support. Despite a fierce onslaught, BN failed to recapture Selangor and Penang, the two most industrialised states in the country. Dr Mahathir pointed out that all the Chinese candidates from the DAP contested in Chinese-majority constituencies. The DAP became the second-largest party in Parliament by winning 38 federal seats compared to PKR’s 30 and PAS’s 21. He said that PP was not a “true” coalition, but merely an “election pact” between parties opposed to BN. “This pact clearly benefited the chauvinist Chinese in DAP most, while PAS, the most Malay of the Pakatan parties, benefited the least,” he added. Dr Mahathir further accused “extremists Chinese” in the DAP of whipping up hatred against the Malays through the slogan “Malaysian Malaysia” by implying that non-Malays suffered discrimination and are perceived as second-class citizens. “Whenever government policies such as the NEP were defended, the defenders whether in the government or NGOs are labelled racist,” he said, referring to the New Economic Policy (NEP). PP has charged that race-based policies enrich the Malay elites and the well-connected instead of the poor majority.