Speech (3) by Lim Kit Siang at the opening of the DAP State Assembly Reps’ Workshop in Sibu on Saturday, 11^th June 2011: 

Najib cannot be more wrong as PAS polls outcome is a win for PR and a loss for UMNO

When history is written in the future, the present period may be described as the most exciting, challenging and momentous period in the nation’s history since Merdeka and formation of Malaysia as for the first time in half a century, Malaysians feel that it is within their power to effect far-reaching changes affecting not only themselves, but their children and children’s children.

Just look at the news on online portals and they reflect the multi-facted turmoil affecting the country.

For instance, if we look at the main news headlines on The Malaysia Today, we read the following:

• “Kit Siang, Soi Lek agree race column outdated”

• “Ku Li calls for RCI on power deals”

• “Ex-cop claims AG concealed billion-ringgit scandals”

• “Najib: People, not slogans, decide who wins Putrajaya”

• “PAS polls outcome a win for DAP, says Najib”

The first headline gets to the very root problem of Malaysian nation-building after 54 years as well as the rationale of the 1Malaysia concept – the 2-year RM74million slogan of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

When Selangor DAP Assemblywoman for Subang Jaya Hannah Yeoh and her husband Ramachandran Muniandy tried to register their newborn daughter as an “Anak Malaysia”, it exploded to smithereens the utter hollowness of Najib’s 1Malaysia concept.

Under the official definition of Najib’s 1Malaysia in the expensively-printed 1Malaysia Government Transformation Programme Roadmap launched by Najib in January 2009, 1Malaysia sought to create a Malaysia where every Malaysian perceives of himself of herself as Malaysian first and race, religion, geography and socio-economic status second.

Hannah and Ramachandran sought to be the 1Malaysia pioneer generation by registering their newborn child as “Anak Malaysia” but their 1Malaysia efforts were utterly crushed by the anti-1Malaysia forces in the government bureaucracy – not to mention the Umno hierarchy!

It is a total failure of Malaysian nation-building after more than half-a-century of nationhood that ethnic identities occupy greater primacy than Malaysian nationality.

Malaysians will forever have their separate ethnic identities but they should all be subsumed and subordinated to their common Malaysian nationality – which is why all government documents must be revamped where nationality takes primacy to ethnicity.

In the case of registration of new-borns, the power of National Registration Department to refuse registration of those who refuses to fill in the ethnic column must be taken away.

Who gives the National Registration Department Napoleons the power to decide whether a Malaysian is born in the country or not?

The five headlines in The Malaysian Insider which I cited are just examples of the great changes and turmoil taking place in our country, requiring all leaders to be agile in mind and nimble on foot so that they are always on top, rather than being overwhelmed, by roiling events and developments.

I will just end on the fifth headline: “PAS polls outcome a win for DAP, says Najib”.

Najib cannot be more wrong as PAS polls outcome is a win for Pakatan Rakyat and a loss for UMNO.

This is why Umno and all the Barisan Nasional component parties are panicking as reflected by their reactions to PAS party polls.

The brutal truth is that UMNO and BN have now realised that the Pakatan Rakyat coalition of DAP, PKR and PAS are now a more credible Malaysian option than UMNO and BN to save Malaysia!

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