Referring to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Abdul Rahman Dahlan and Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak as stooges from Sabah Umno, the DAP parliamentary leader said the duo’s comments in their respective blogs seem to be an effort to try and win favour with their boss.
“It is as if they are in competition with one another, to prove to Prime Minister Naijb Razak who is the more useful Umno stooge,” Lim said in a statement today.
Ridiculing Rahman over his statement, entitled “Time for Lim Kit Siang to resign from politics”, the Gelang Patah MP said it looked like the Kota Belud MP had “scored an own goal”.
“He argued that I should resign from politics because DAP cannot take on BN and Najib alone despite being the biggest opposition party, and that is why I was using Dr Mahathir Mohamad to spearhead Pakatan Harapan, despite him not being an MP.
“He also suggested that I had become a liability to the opposition as I was propelling Mahathir as the saviour of Malaysia after attacking Mahathir for 22 years as prime minister,” Lim said.
He added that all this pointed to there being something wrong with the way Rahman was rationalising his arguments.
“Rahman’s sense of judgement and priorities couldn’t be more wrong. For if his reasons are valid, from an Umno/BN perspective, they are the very reasons why I should remain in my position.
“Why then is Rahman so keen that I retire from politics, when he should be praying that I will remain in politics so that I can continue to be such a disastrous impact on DAP and Pakatan Harapan which can only immensely benefit Umno/BN,” the DAP supremo asked.
Lim then mocked Rahman, saying he wants the latter to remain as BN strategic communications director “for he is such a boon to Pakatan Harapan and such a bane to Umno/BN”.
Stupid question
Moving on to Salleh, Lim said the blog posting entitled “DAP tidak chauvinis: bolehkah kita terima pandangan ini?”, in which the Umno treasurer had asked if Mahathir had realised his perception of the DAP had been wrong, and DAP is not chauvinist, why did Mahathir not join DAP.
“I am surprised Salleh, who was formerly Sabah chief minister, could ask such a stupid question.
“He also asked if Mahathir had realised his perception towards the DAP was wrong all this time, ‘why did he not apologise to Lim Kit Siang and party’ during the launch of the opposition pact in Johor recently,” Lim said.
The DAP veteran added that it was enough for Mahathir to come out in the open and admit he was behind Umno’s move to label DAP as a “Chinese chauvinist party” when he was the Umno president for 22 years.
“This is because he has now realised that DAP is really multi-racial. So why is Salleh upset that Mahathir had admitted he had been wrong when he had previously said that DAP was anti-Malay?
“Is Salleh now going to use his ministerial position to perpetuate Mahathir’s wrong and false image of the DAP as anti-Malay? Will he also sub-contract to PAS to disseminate the equally wrong and false image of DAP as ‘anti-Islam’?”
Lim called for Salleh and Umno to stop dividing Malaysians by race or religion.
“Let us think, feel and act as Malaysians if we are to save Malaysia from kleptocracy and the fate of a failed and rogue state,” he said.