Kit Siang: Why MCA, MIC still silent about the wrongdoings?

File photo of Lim Kit Siang.

GELANG PATAH, June 28 – In the past four years since the 14th General Election, no MCA or MIC leader had expressed regrets or concern at the MCA and MIC support before May 2018 for the mega multi-billion 1MDB scandal or the shocking developments where Malaysia was equated with “kleptocracy at its worst”, said Member of Parliament for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang today.

In fact, in the Malacca and Johore state general elections, MCA and MIC leaders and candidates were depending on Najib’s seeming popularity of “APA MALUnya BOSSku” persona to get votes, regardless of whether Malaysia had been tainted with the infamy of “kleptocracy at its worst”, Kit Siang said in a statement today, following several statements made by Pasir Salak MP Datuk Seri Tajuddin Abdul Rahman in a press conference Monday. He had been dropped as a member of the UMNO Supreme Council.

Pasir Salak MP Tajuddin Abdul Rahman at the press conference on Monday, June 27, where he made several statements including one on a statutory declaration signed by 15 UMNO members backing Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as a prime minister back in 2020.

Among Tajuddin’s statements were that UMNO President Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was impatient and pushing for the 15th General Election with the “wish to become the prime minister” while he was still facing court cases, and that Zahid also played the key role in gathering UMNO members to sign a statutory declaration to back Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as prime minister. He said 15 UMNO members had signed the SD.

Tajuddin also said he was of the view that the party’s leaders facing court cases were becoming a burden to the party. He also questioned the credibility of Zahid’s leadership, saying that it would be best for him and other “poor quality” leaders to resign.

In his statement, Kit Siang said that “The UMNO implosion over what is right and wrong has taken more than four years to occur. There are UMNO leaders who are beginning to see what is right and what is wrong, something which MCA and MIC leaders and Ministers have yet to show.

“I had asked last month whether there was nobody in UMNO who dared to say that UMNO should not seek the return of Najib Razak as Prime Minister as his years as Prime Minister when Malaysia became “kleptocracy at its worst” worldwide was nothing to be proud of.

“Now it appears that I was both right and wrong. The account by the sacked UMNO Supreme Council member, Tajuddin Abdul Rahman that a group of senior and influential leaders in UMNO had gathered in his house to broker a deal that would see president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi step down amicably as early as 2020 but the UMNO Deputy President Mohamad Hasan and former Prime Minister Najib Razah had backed out.”

Kit Siang also said Najib’s presence at Tajuddin’s house was a surprise, as after the discovery of the seeming popularity of his “Apa Malunya BOSSku” persona, he has kept alive his dream of again becoming the Prime Minister of Malaysia, whether the 10th or 11th Prime Minister.

“I was wrong in implying that nobody whether at UMNO leadership or membership level had heeded the warning of the fourth UMNO President and third Prime Minister Tun Hussein Onn at the 1979 UMNO General Assembly that Malaysia will be destroyed if its leaders were “dishonest, untrustworthy and corrupt” but right that such warnings would not sway the UMNO leadership from supporting Zahid or even Najib’s ambition to return as the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

“There are UMNO leaders who are beginning to see what is right and what is wrong, something which MCA and MIC leaders and ministers have yet to show,” Kit Siang added.

–WE