After 54 years, Malaysia is teetering on the edge of another May 13, 1969 riots.
Will all political parties and candidates in the forthcoming six state polls on August 12 declare that they do not want a recurrence of May 13, 1969 riots in Malaysia and reaffirm the relevance of the Rukun Negara nation-building principles for a plural Malaysia?
Last night, the Opposition Leader Hamzah Zainudin condemned the legal action taken against Perikatan Nasional’s election director and caretaker Kedah Mentri Besar Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor, calling it selective prosecution and questioned the need to apprehend Sanusi at 3am.
While the police arrest of Sanusi at 3 am is generally regarded as excessive and an abuse of power, Zainudin had not addressed the press conference of the Inspector-General of Police Razarudin Husain held five hours earlier to explain the force’s handling of the case, saying that the police only resorted to arresting Sanusi after attempts to call him and his aides got rejected and police initially had difficulties locating his whereabouts.
Why did Zainudin fail to refer to the IGP’s explanation five hours earlier? Was the IGP telling the truth?
What is Sanusi’s comment to Razarudin’s claim that Sanusi had gone incommunicado prior to his scheduled court appearance.
The nation’s founding fathers, Onn Jaafar, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Razak Hussein, Hussein Onn, Ismail Abdul Rahman, Tan Cheng Lock, Tan Siew Sin and V.T. Sambanthan envisaged a nation comprising Malays and non-Malays and that is why there is Article 43 in the Malaysian Constitution which does not limit a Prime Minister to the Malays, where non-Malays are not constitutionally barred from holding the office of Prime Minister although Article 43(7) barred a person who is a citizen by naturalization or by registration under Article 17 from becoming Prime Minister.
I do not expect to see a non-Malay to become a Prime Minister in my lifetime or even my children’s lifetime.
I posed this question in Parliament during the debate of the 2009 Budget in November 2008.
I said it was unthinkable even until very recently for anyone to believe that it was possible for a black, who were slaves until some 150 years ago, to be able to become President of US.
With Obama’s historic breakthrough, many Malaysians were asking whether it was possible for a Chinese, Indian, Kadazan, or Dayak to become the Prime Minister of Malaysia although the Constitution is very clear that any Malaysian citizen, regardless of race or religion can become Prime Minister.
I said if such a question was asked 50 years ago, the nation’s founders like Tunku Abdul Rahman, Razak Hussein, Hussein Onn, Dr. Ismail Abdul Rahman, Tan Cheng Lock, Tan Siew Sin and V.T. Sambanthan would unhesitatingly answered in the positive as there was no constitutional bar — a separate question from whether it was likely to happen.
I said in Parliament in November 2018 that if the same question was asked at that time, there would be strong voices who would rise up to say no, and I asked:
“Why is Malaysian race relations and nation-building going backwards in the past 50 years as compared to the historic breakthrough in race relations in the United States with Obama’s historic victory in the US presidential elections?
We seem to have slipped further in the year 2023.
After six decades of nation-building, Malaysia has slipped from a first-rate world-class nation to a second-class mediocre country. We have become a nation in decline.
Are we fated to end up as a divided, failed and corrupt state?
This is the most important question for the six state polls on August 12 – Can we Save Malaysia to reset and return to the original nation-building principles of a plural Malaysia which our nation’s founding fathers have written into the Constitution and Rukun Negara to reunite a very polarised plural society and make Malaysia a first-rate world-class nation with world-class political, economic, educational and social systems instead of hurtling along to become a divided, failed and corrupt state?