Speech (2) by Lim Kit Siang at the Pakatan Rakyat Permatang Pasir by-election ceramah at Kg Cross Street, Bukit Mertajam on Friday, 21^st August 2009 at 10 pm: 

Pathetic neither Tee Keat nor Tsu Koon dare to dissociate MCA/Gerakan from Umno candidate Rohaizat for not being honest or truthful with BN leadership and Permatang Pasir voters about his being struck off the lawyers’ rolls

It is sad and pathetic that neither MCA President Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat nor the Gerakan President Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon dare to dissociate the MCA and Gerakan from the Umno candidate for Permatang Pasir Rohaizat Othman for not being honest and truthful with the Barisan Nasional leadership and the 20,290 voters of Permatang Pasir about his being struck off the lawyers’ rolls.

After the political tsunami of the March 8 general elections last year, where Gerakan and MCA received an unprecedented thrashing in the polls, with a total rout in Penang state, Gerakan and MCA leaders promised to learn the lessons from the electoral debacle.

Gerakan and MCA leaders admitted that they were punished for their servile and subservient role in the Barisan Nasional and pledged that henceforth they were not going to be “yes men” and “yes women” to Umno in Barisan Nasional and would speak out strongly, fearlessly and consistently on what is right and wrong in the Barisan Nasional without being afraid of displeasing Umno “Big Brother”.

However, Gerakan and MCA failed miserably in the scandal of the Umno candidate in the Permatang Pasir by-election candidate, putting up a lawyer who had been struck off the lawyers’ rolls by the Bar Council for “breach of trust, dishonesty, shown gross disregard of client’s interests” which was “tantamount to a conduct unbefitting that of an advocate and solicitor which conduct as such brings the legal professional into disrepute”.

If on such a simple, open-and-shut case of what is right and wrong concerning the impropriety of Rohaizat’s candidature, Tsu Koon and Tee Keat dare not speak up honesty and according to their conscience, how can Malaysians expect them to do what is right in bigger issues, whether the mysterious death of Teoh Beng Hock in the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters or the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal?

Let Tee Keat and Tsu Koon declare whether they are in full support of Rohaizat as BN candidate for Permatang Pasir by-election before MCA and Gerakan continue campaigning in the Permatang Pasir by-election.

*Lim Kit Siang, DAP Parliamentary leader & MP for Ipoh Timor