Annuar and the UMNO stooges are all wrong – DAP will not be the Pakatan Harapan party with the largest bloc of MPs from the 165 parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia

When UMNO Supreme Council member and Deputy Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Deputy Minister Datuk Tajuddin Abdul Rahman made a false accusation against Tun Mahathir and tried to claim that Mahathir was “injected with DAP’s blood”, everyone including UMNO leaders must be wondering what blood Tajuddin had been injected with because there is not a more foul-mouthed political leader today than Tajuddin who seemed to have no trace of “adab orang Melayu” at all.

Would UMNO Information Chief, Tan Sri Annuar Musa agree with Tajuddin’s analogy of “blood injection” for the improper conduct of UMNO leaders to the extent that they have become the very personifaction not only of kleptocracy but “global kleptocracy”?

Has Annuar been affected by “injected blood” for his ongoing campaign to demonise me and Mahathir, especially in his speech yesterday alleging that the “formidable” and “invincible” politician had been “tamed” by me and that I deserved the title of “political dictator”?

As there is neither logic nor coherence in Annuar’s speech, it may be a good idea for Annuar to go for a blood test!

When I said last week that Sabah had produced two UMNO stooges – Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak and Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan – I was not implying that there are no UMNO stooges on this side of the South China Sea.

There are, and among the leading UMNO stooges are the UMNO Information Chief Annuar Musa and UMNO Supreme Council member and Director-General of the Special Affairs Department (JASA) in the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Mohd Puad Zarkashi.

Annuar can benefit from a little humility. He should realise that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”.

Annuar waxed eloquent on how Tun Mahathir had been “captured” and “tamed” by me, claiming that “Kit Siang had never been to the Umno headquarters when Mahathir was in Umno. But finally, Mahathir went to the DAP office.”

Annuar cannot be more wrong. I was sitting on the front row as “guest” during the official opening of the UMNO Headquarters at the PWTC by Mahathir on Sept. 2, 1985. Where was Annuar at the time?

Annuar, like other Umno leaders, continued to propagate the perception that DAP controls the opposition coalition.

But Annuar made a most abominable and detestable statement when he accused the DAP of using “young Malay women” such as Dyana Sofia Mohd Daud for publicity purposes.

Annuar has received a rightly-deserved reprimand from Dyana. He should not be so blind to the achievements of DAP women leaders, regardless of race or religion, like Hannah Yeoh, Selangor State Assembly Speaker; Gan Pek Ching, Johore State Assembly Opposition Leader; Liow Cai Tung, Johore State Assembly representative for Johor Jaya and the youngest serving assemblyperson in Malaysia; Chong Eng, long-standing activist for woman causes and Penang State exco member; the redoubtable quartet of DAP Members of Parliament Teresa Kok (Seputeh), Teo Nie Ching (Kulai), Kasthuriraani a/p Patto (Batu Kawan) and Alice Lau Kiong Yieng (Lanang); Sabah DAP wanita leader Jannie Lasimbang; as well as many others, including Dyana, Yeo Bee Yin, Mary Josephine Pritam Singh, Young Syefura Othman, Syerleena binti Abdul Rashid and Sangeet Kaur Deo.

Annuar and the other UMNO stooges contend that I will become the next Prime Minister as DAP will win the largest bloc of MPs among the Pakatan Harapan coalition.

Annuar and the UMNO stooges are all wrong – as DAP will not be the Pakatan Harapan party with the largest bloc of MPs after the 14th General Election as far as the distribution of the parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia are concerned.

In the last general elections in 2013, the Opposition coalition won 89 parliamentary seats in the 222-seat in Parliament, while Barisan Nasional won 133 seats. Out of the 89 seats, DAP won 38 seats (31 in Peninsular Malaysia and seven in Sarawak and Sabah); PKR 30 (28 in Peninsular Malaysia and two in Sabah and Sarawak) and PAS 21 (all in Peninsular Malaysia).

I have said that if there is a swing of 10% Malay voters and 5% non-Malay voters from Barisan Nasional to Pakatan Harapan in Peninular Malaysia in the 14th General Election as compared to the 13th General Election, Pakatan Harapan will win 113 of the 165 parliamentary seats, leaving Barisan Nasional with 50 and PAS two.

In this scenario of 113 Pakatan Harapan parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia, the distribution could be DAP 32, and the other three Pakatan Harapan parties 39, 32 and 10 respectively or other possible combinations and permutations, but the political party with the biggest parliamentary bloc in Peninsular Malaysia would be either PKR or Parti Pribumi Bersatu and not DAP.

When the parliamentary seats in Sarawak and Sabah are taken into consideration, then there would be more than a comfortable majority for the Pakatan Harapan government coalition.

However, whatever the final combination and permutation of the distribution of parliamentary seats among the Pakatan Harapan parties in Peninsular Malaysia and Malaysia-wide, the Prime Minister will be a Malay and will not be from the DAP.

And I definitely will not be the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

But this will not stop UMNO/BN leaders, strategists and cybertroopers from their campaign of fear, lies and falsehoods among the Malay voters that their fate will be adversely affected if UMNO is routed in the next general elections because of the myth that “UMNO is Malay and Malay is UMNO”.

The best rebuttal to the UMNO myth that the Malays will perish if UMNO is defeated in the forthcoming general election is from the Negri Sembilan Mentri Besar, Datuk Seri Mohamad Hassan in his speech at the opening of the Sembrong Division UMNO delegates’ conference in August this year.

Mohamad said Umno must woo the Malay voters to get the support of the majority of the people so that BN wins the 14th general election.

He said Umno could no longer think that the Malays needed it but instead it was Umno that needed the Malays in order to survive.

As Mohamad Hassn rightly pointed out, Malays now have many choices, such as Parti Pribumi Bersatu, PKR, Amanah, PAS and DAP, and UMNO will pay a heavy price in terms of loss of Malay electoral support if it continues to believe in the myth that “UMNO is Malay and Malay is UMNO”.

Lim Kit Siang DAP Parliamentary Leader & MP for Gelang Patah