The abuse of the Sedition Act against political opponents and the suing of Malaysiakini are the worst setbacks in Najib’s “making Malaysia the best democracy in the world” declaration

Speech by M Kula Segaran, DAP National Vice Chairman and MP for Ipoh Barat at DAP Dinner held in Bercham, Ipoh on Sunday, June 08, 2014

The abuse of the Sedition Act against political opponents and the suing of Malaysiakini are the worst setbacks in Najib’s “making Malaysia the best democracy in the world” declaration

It was sad that DAP had lost by a narrow margin of 238 majority votes in the recent Teluk Intan by election. 

But we will not allow this setback to derail the Pakatan Rakyat’s Towards Putrajaya objective in the next general election.

As such, DAP will conduct a post mortem to find out the factors for our defeat and the lessons to be learnt.

It was obvious that low voter turnout was one of the main factors contributing to Dyana’s narrow defeat. 

Although Gerakan President Datuk Mah Siew Keong had said after the polling day that the BN could have obtained 50 % of support from outstation voters, throughout the campaign, he was calling on resident voters not to let outstation voters decide Teluk Intan’s future. Obviously he must have been praying hard for a low turnout of outstation voters. 

I therefore call on all PR supporters to help ensure that outstation voters in all constituencies will return to vote in the next general election like they did in the last general election.

Most important of all, Malaysians who have long yearned for political change must continue to keep the hopes alive and burning. Malaysians must continue the crusade to bring about a better Malaysia for all. 

Time and events after the 13 the general election have proven that not only the Prime Minister is unable to bring about a better Malaysia; he is bringing more political darkness to the nation. 

Najib loves to talk about concept of moderation especially at overseas forums, but he cannot walk his talk. 

There have been much provocative dangerous comments aimed at creating racial and religious conflict by extremist groups like Perkasa, ISMA and self styled Council of Islamic NGOs, yet he has remained silent. 

Is he keeping quiet because this is the way UMNO outsources extreme politics or is it because Najib lacks the courageous to criticize the extreme groups?  

Najib has often talked about BN being the coalition that will keep its promises. But till today, not only has the government not done anything to repeal the draconian and outdated 1948 Sedition Act, the Act was selectively used to prosecute DAP MP for Seputeh, Teresa Kok and the late Karpal Singh. 

The Prime Minsiter’s recent action in suing the Malaysiakini also shows that while the former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir would use ISA to silence government critics, Najib will now use legal suits to silence critics. 

This proves that he is not better than Mahathir and that he is afraid of free speech.

Prime Ministers in mature democracies get ridiculed, criticized or even maligned; do we see them suing the newspapers that carry such comments or the ordinary people who have uttered those comments? 

Najib has once declared that he wants to make Malaysia “the best democracy in the world”.

The abuse of the Sedition Act against political opponents and the suing of Malaysiakini are the worst setbacks in Najib’s “making Malaysia the best democracy in the world” declaration.