KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 21 – One of the longest serving politicians in the country, Lim Kit Siang, who turned 81 on Sunday, has made two birthday wishes for the people of Malaysian and the country.
In a statement issued here today, the DAP Member of Parliament for Iskandar Puteri, said his first wish was to see the people of Johore “representing Malaysians to tell the world on March 12 ( Johore state election day) that Malaysians are capable of differentiating between right and wrong, what is corruption and abuses of power and what is not.”
Thanking all Malaysians who sent their birthday greetings to him on Sunday, he also expressed a wish to see the country becoming a “world-class great nation to fulfil Bapa Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman’s aspiration for Malaysia to be a “beacon of light to a difficult and distracted world” despite half-a-century of national decline, losing out to one nation after another – Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Vietnam.
Kit Siang also reiterated his stand against several allegations hurled at him and his party.
“The DAP and I have been accused of many fake and false things. The latest false accusation is that MUDA is the creation of DAP aimed at baiting Malay youths.
“The DAP has also been accused of setting up Amanah.
“These false accusations are like the false accusations of the then UMNO President who told the 2015 UMNO General Assembly that the DAP was anti-Malay and anti-Islam.
“Although I was born, bred and schooled in Batu Pahat, there were allegations that I came from China when I was eighteen years old and there were also allegations that I was related to Chin Peng and Lee Kuan Yew, although they never explained how this could be so as Chin Peng is a Hockchia, Kuan Yew a Hakka and I a Hokkien.”
He also lamented the tag of “anti-Malay and anti-Islam” given to him.
“I am not anti-Malay or anti-Islam. No one can be a Malaysian leader if he or she is anti any race and religion in Malaysia, for he or she must be committed to Malaysia as a multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural Malaysia.
“Malaysia must be Truly Asia, not just to draw the tourists, but as an ineluctable fact of Malaysian life.”
–WE