Speak up for MCA, prove Utusan wrong: Kit Siang to Soi Lek

Speak up for MCA, prove Utusan wrong: Kit Siang to Soi Lek

By Debra Chong

January 30, 2012
Malaysian Insider

Lim said Utusan was becoming more overt in its attempt to create friction within Malaysian society. — File pic

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 30 — Amidst a worsening spat today, DAP’s Lim Kit Siang dared the president of MCA to take on the Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia to prove the latter’s party still had clout in the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.

The DAP veteran said this was especially needed as Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek has been telling MCA's dwindling Chinese support that “a vote for DAP is a vote for PAS and a victory for DAP in the next general election is paving the road for PAS’s ‘days of glory’.”

“Utusan Malaysia is living up to its reputation as the most unprincipled, unscrupulous, extremist and racist voice in Malaysia,” the DAP advisor said in a statement today.

“Even Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Razak cannot bring it into line,” the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leader added.

He stressed that Utusan was turning more desperate as its circulation and credibility continued to plunge, suggesting that the paper was becoming harder to deal with and that such a situation was dangerous for non-Malays, including those within the ruling coalition.

“This should concern the MCA president as Utusan Malaysia is the official newspaper of Umno, the political hegemon in Barisan Nasional,” Lim said.

The Ipoh-Timor MP questioned the BN leader’s silence over what he termed Utusan’s attempt to incite racial hatred and tension among multiethnic-multireligious Malaysia, noting the “subservience, impotence and irrelevance of MCA and other non-Umno leaders”.

Lim said the onus was also now on Dr Chua to clear his party’s indirect link to outspoken Malay rights group Perkasa.

He highlighted that federal lawmakers’ reports and futures were now less in the PM’s control than that of the Malay-language paper.

“If Utusan Malaysia is right [that] DAP is the world’s most racist party, then Chua is wrong. If Chua is right, then Utusan must be wrong,” Lim said.