DAPSY condemns UMNO Chief Youth Akmal Saleh for unreasonably attacking the Minister of Transport Anthony Loke’s remark, whereby fundraising events for Chinese vernacular schools can continue as long as guidelines are followed. DAPSY also calls upon Akmal Saleh to be a responsible and reasonable youth leader and stop inciting racial and religious emotions maliciously alongside opposition parties such as PAS.
The Minister of Transport Anthony Loke earlier mentioned that fundraising events for vernacular schools, in which beer companies are involved, have been organized for a long time without issue and can continue as long as no Muslim students are involved. However, Akmal Saleh still blindly criticized Anthony Loke as the “Acting Education Minister” and made baseless accusations against the minister. All the nonsensical remarks reflect that Akmal Saleh does not fully grasp the system of democracy in Malaysia and is merely interested in inciting emotions and creating confrontation in our multiracial society.
Malaysia’s democratic system is modeled on the Westminster system, in which the entire Cabinet is responsible to the Parliament and the Cabinet itself adheres to the principle of collective responsibility. Therefore, when the Cabinet has decided that fundraising events are allowed to continue for Chinese vernacular schools, DAP Secretary-General Anthony Loke, who is also a member of the Cabinet, can explain and elaborate the Cabinet’s decision to the public.
However, UMNO Youth Chief Akmal acted like a hero by brazenly sensationalizing racial and religious issues that were played up by the opposition parties. Such an action will not bring about any benefits to the unity government, but will gradually destroy the very foundation of our multicultural society.
For the record, the fundraising event, which was only embroiled in controversy in recent days, has been organized for 30 years to raise funds for the Chinese vernacular schools from the private sector to repair schools’ infrastructures and elevate our education quality as a whole. The malicious accusations made by PN and PAS, including slanders that beer companies are involved in promoting drinking cultures among students, are completely distorted, baseless, and untenable.
In addition, even UMNO Vice President Khaled Nordin recently refuted PN and PAS for their hypocrisy, pointing out that the previous government also utilized funds collected from alcohol and gambling companies to fund vernacular schools for many years. However, Akmal Saleh, as the UMNO Youth Chief, ignored the statement outright and unreasonably criticized the Unity Government.
“PAS played up the fundraising event for Chinese vernacular schools with the obvious attempt to undermine the Unity Government. Unfortunately, Akmal was fixated on attacking the Unity Government out of nowhere. As such, many of us can’t help but question if Akmal is becoming a bad political role model for the younger generation by destroying the multicultural society that our forefathers built and struggled for.”
All in all, Akmal Saleh should stop fanning racial tensions and seriously review his political approaches to work for the people’s welfare regardless of race and religion as well as to promote the prosperity of a multicultural society instead of repeatedly acting like a hero in the expense of the country’s future.
Ho Chi Yang
DAPSY National Varsity Affairs Bureau Director
