He said unlike Umno’s current president Najib Razak, Dr Mahathir Mohamad had never resorted to such a “dirty tactic” in all his 22 years leading the party.

“Mahathir, at the Umno general assemblies in his time, never painted DAP as his number one enemy.

“He didn’t have to do this as he was able to manage the country and its economy well.

“But Najib has failed and to divert attention from his failure, he had to use religion and race in the hope it would scare the Malays (into voting for Umno),” said Lim in his winding up speech at the DAP national conference here today.

Lim said this following the recently concluded Umno general assembly which saw party leaders painting the DAP as an anti-Malay party.

However Mahathir, who made a surprise appearance at the conference this morning, said that from his observation, DAP appeared to be more nationalistic than Umno’s political partner, MCA.

“Mahathir thought we were like MCA whose party anthem is in Chinese. But now he knows ours is actually in the national language,” said Lim.

“He has said that BN (Barisan Nasional) is more racist than DAP and this is important to us because even a former prime minister has recognised our multiracial spirit.

“We have fought our battles for over 50 years and some people said we were stupid for doing so, but this is no longer the case.”

Mahathir’s recognition of DAP was a catalyst, Lim added, and regarded as much needed encouragement for the party to continue moving forward in its effort to convince the people that it was anything but a “chauvinistic” party as claimed by Umno.

“If we can do this, I can guarantee that 50 years from now, we will still be around.

“Najib wants to destroy us in the next general election. But let us show that we are a party for the rakyat while BN is a party that will destroy their future.”