Cabinet, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and MCA’s silence on PAS vision of racial and religious electoral apartheid is ominous and can be construed as assent when PAS 18 MPs are needed to keep the PN minority government in power. PN and Cabinet must declare their stand on PAS vision of a racist and extremist religious Malaysia, to gerrymander election boundaries to benefit Muslims and Malays.
Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities Khairuddin Aman Razali has advocated PN’s objective to win a two-thirds majority in the next general election, is to redraw election boundaries with a racial and religious bias favourable to Muslims and Malays. Khairudin has failed to perform his role as a Malaysian Minister by unashamedly making such racist and religious extremist statement, Never before has a Malaysian Minister taken such an irresponsible, divisive and unconstitutional position.
The Federal Constitution explicitly prohibits gerrymandering in whatever form because it contradicts the fundamental democratic principle of equal representation and value of “one-person, one-vote”. What is disturbing is that there is neither repudiation nor renunciation from Cabinet, particularly the non-Malay/non-Muslim members from MCA, MIC or GPS.
Their silence is a betrayal equivalent to servile subservience to the power of PAS to discriminate, deprive and deny the rights of non-Malays and non-Muslims. Apart from MCA and MIC, will Sabah and Sarawak parties cut ties with PAS for such divisive, dirty and dangerous approach against non-Malays and non-Muslims in Malaysia?
Clearly PAS is attempting to divert attention from their comprehensive failure to uphold parliamentary democracy with the suspension of Parliament, overcome the COVID-19 crisis, manage the economic recession, prevent the largest drop in foreign investment in ASEAN, save businesses and jobs. Unemployment is at 4.9% in January 2021 with youth unemployment rising to the highest in decades at 13.5%. PAS have also kept silent on the Election Commission’s refusal to immediately implement the constitutional amendment to reduce the voting age from 21 to 18, even though many of the new voters are Malays and Muslims.
At least there are still Malay Muslim leaders from PH, who dare to oppose such gerrymandering of constituencies with a racial or religious bias, unlike the non-Malay or non-Muslims members in government who have sold out their own communities in exchange for the perks and privileges of office. They have kept silent in the past when PN uses race and religion to shore up weak political support.
Whether these non-Malay or non-Muslim MPs are in the PN government or not does not appear to matter much to the non-Malays and non-Muslims. Malaysians must not be disheartened, particularly in Sabah and Sarawak, but must unite with all justice-loving Malaysians to protect and preserve our Federal Constitution from being perverted by PAS and their religious extremist and racist allies in PN.