From DAP http://www.malaysia.net/dap Chan Kong Choy - Challenge to dialogue with Nik Aziz By Lim Kit Siang The MCA
leadership has again resorted to the campaign of lies and
falsehoods in the Sanggang by-election campaign - a
campaign which had been so successfully deployed in the
recent general election that DAP suffered a catastrophic
electoral setback and I myself was defeated for the first
time in 30 years in a parliamentary election. For
instance, in this by-election, the MCA campaign theme in
their posters, banners and billboards is to ask the
Chinese voters to reject the Oppositions
"sugar-coated poison", that they should reject
an "extremist PAS" in favour of a
"moderate Barisan Nasional" and that support
for PAS would lead to the end of Chinese rights in
Malaysia. During this
by-election, the MCA election campaign is more
circumspect and MCA leaders dare not publicly spell out
what they mean in their charges that PAS is extremist,
that the Oppositions is promising
"sugar-coated poison" and that Chinese rights
would be lost if PAS wins in the by-election but on
ground, in their house-to-house campaigns, MCA election
workers continue to spread lies and falsehoods. A good
example is what the MCA Pahang State Chairman and Deputy
Finance Minister, Datuk Chan Kong Choy did during his
visit to the market in Sanggang - telling the people that
if the PAS candidate wins in the by-election, the Chinese
would not be able to eat pork or practise ancestor
worship, which is meant to be particularly telling with
the approach of Chen Beng or Chinese All Souls Day. Chan Kong
Choy and the MCA leaders should have the courage to make
these charges publicly and stand by them instead of
conducting an irresponsible whispering campaign of lies
and poison on the ground. Chan Kong
Choy also alleged that the Kelantan Mentri Besar, Nik
Aziz Nik Mat feigned illness so as to avoid attending a
dialogue organised by the DAP for the Kelantan PAS state
government leadership with the Chinese voters in Sanggang
on Saturday, because Nik Aziz could not "face
up" to the Chinese voters. I am very
sad that MCA leaders should stoop so low as to resort to
such lies, falsehoods and even character-assassination
just to win votes. On 3rd
March 2000, Nik Aziz attended a DAP-organised
inter-political, inter-religious and inter-civilisational
dialogue with other senior executive councillors of the
Kelantan State Government at the Selangor Chinese
Assembly Hall in Kuala Lumpur and answered questions from
the public about Kelantan State government policies and
measures. It is most
therefore most unworthy and dishonourable for Chan Kong
Choy to suggest that Nik Aziz feigned sickness to avoid
such a dialogue in the Sanggang by-election, allegedly
because he was afraid to "face up" to the
Chinese voters on the record of the Kelantan PAS state
government - when in fact Nik Aziz was indisposed on
Saturday. I have not
discussed with Nik Aziz, but I dare to make a proposal
that as Chan Kong Choy is so convinced that the Kelantan
Mentri Besar is afraid to "face up" to the
Chinese in Sanggang on the record of the Kelantan PAS
state government, and that the Chinese in Kelantan are an
"oppressed race" where there is no pork, no
alcohol, no temples, no ancestor-worship, no Chinese
schools, pretty women cannot find work and there is a
chopping of hands and feet, that he and other top MCA
national leaders appear at a dialogue together with Nik
Aziz to give the MCA an opportunity to prove that PAS is
an extremist party and that the Chinese will lose their
rights under PAS. I give Chan
Kong Choy 24 hours to accept this invitation to a public
dialogue with Nik Aziz on 29th March in Sanggang, and
once he accepts, I will then contact Nik Aziz, whom I
believe would have no hesitation whatsoever in accepting
such an invitation. The ball is
now in the court of Chan Kong Choy, who together with
other MCA leaders should stop their whispering campaign
of lies and falsehoods on the ground - and instead
courageously bring out their whispered allegations into
the public limelight to be tested as to whether they are
true or false. Let me
state that if in the dialogue between Chan Kong Choy and
Nik Aziz, the MCA can prove that under PAS rule in
Kelantan, the Chinese are an "oppressed race"
and that there is no pork, no alcohol, no temples, no
ancestor-worship, no Chinese schools in the state, I will
call on the voters of Sanggang to vote for Barisan
Nasional and reject the Barisan Alternative candidate. But if in the dialogue with Nik Aziz, Chan Kong Choy cannot prove any of these lies and falsehoods being spread by the MCA in their house-to-house visits on the ground, is he prepared to openly call on the Sanggang voters to vote for the PAS candidate, Datuk Hishammuddin Yahya? |