KeAdilan should focus energies on ensuring that the Indera Kayangan by-election is not cast as a battle between a  “Taliban Malaysia”  and an “United States and Northern Alliance Malaysia” instead of  allowing the Goh Keng Huat issue to impose new strain in relations with DAP

---

Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang

---

I have said publicly that as an opposition, DAP would like to assist in the Indera Kayangan by-election to highlight the cause of democracy and human rights, especially as the two years after the 1999 general elections have seen the scenario going from bad to worse, as illustrated by the following events:
 

• A crackdown on human rights as in the arbitrary use  of the Internal Security Act against Opposition leaders and activists and the clampdown on freedom of speech and assembly as in the ban on ceramahs;
• The high-handed appointment of the new Attorney-General, Datuk Abdul Gani Patail in disregard of the fundamental principles of constitutional propriety and good governance raising anew widespread public concerns about the rule of law and the administration of justice in the country;
• The further emasculation of Parliament to be a  meaningful highest political forum of the people, as illustrated by the arbitrary and undemocratic suspension of DAP MP for Batu Gajah, Fong Po Kuan for six months without allowance   whose only crime was  her dedication to her parliamentary duties to speak up for the people;
• The unabated scandals of KKN - corruption, cronyism and nepotism - where vast sums of public funds are misused  to rescue companies or individuals, whether Time dotCom, MAS, Renong-UEM, Indah Water Konsortium, or Tan Sri Halim Saad to give him a colossal pardon and release from his RM3.2 billion debt arising from his UEM “put option” .
• The Damansara Chinese primary school controversy demonstrating the refusal of the Barisan Nasional to fully respect the educational aspirations of the diverse population in a plural society.

DAP’s fears that these issues would be  lost in the Indera Kayangan by-election if it is cast as a battle between the Islamic state of ala-UMNO or Islamic state ala-PAS have  been confirmed  by reports of the four-day Indera Kayangan by-election campaign and the  failure or inability of Parti Keadilan Nasional and PAS to make an effective and powerful  response to the blatant nightly 90-second  Barisan Nasional political propaganda camouflaged as prime-time news in various television channels and in different languages to convey the message to the voters of Indera Kayangan  that the Barisan Alternative (BA) stands for a Taliban Malaysia, with PAS as the chief proponents and Parti Keadilan Nasional as the abettors.

I have said that if the Indera Kayangan by-election is cast as a battle between the “Taliban of Malaysia” and the “United States and Northern Alliance of Malaysia’’, the DAP has no role whatsoever in such a battle, as the great issues for which the DAP joined in the formation of the Barisan Alternative - justice, freedom, democracy and good governance - would be  completely lost in such a
battleground.

With five days left for the Indera Kayangan by-election campaign, PKN and BA should try to salvage the situation by ensuring that the by-election is not a battle between Islamic state ala-PAS or Islamic state ala-UMNO, but is about justice, freedom, democracy and good governance - by coming out with a powerful, effective and convincting counter to the blatant nightly 90-second  Barisan Nasional political poison  camouflaged as prime-time news.

The Goh Keng Huat issue is  a DAP disciplinary matter and  there is no need for any more public statement on it by any DAP leader until the DAP disciplinary committee has met and decided on it after the Indera Kayangan  by-election.  I do not think however that it is a matter which warrants disciplinary actions like expulsion. What should  concern Malaysians supportive of the Opposition cause is the new strain it has imposed on  DAP-PKN relations.

(14/1/2002)