Malacca General Election the messiest general election in Malaysian history for six decades with the most number of candidates likely to lose their deposits

The Malacca General Election is the messiest general election in Malaysian history for six decades, with the most number of candidates likely to lose their deposits.

There are 112 candidates vying for 28 Malacca State Assembly seats. There will be three-cornered fights in 11 seats, four-way contests in nine, five-cornered battles in five and six-way fights in three.

Although it is a Malacca state general election, it will have far-reaching political future implications for the future of Malaysia and may even decide whether Ismail Sabri will Prime Minister for the shortest term – shorter than the term served by his “backdoor” predecessor, Muhyiddin Yassin.

It may also decide whether there will be a creeping return of kleptocracy in Malaysia.

One of the weapons used in the Malacca state general election will be lies and misinformation.

A Bersatu leader has already accused the DAP of being “chauvinist” and “anti-Malay”.

I cannot understand this Bersatu leader for I have been in politics some 57 years and I do not have a single anti-Malay bone in my body.

I have on the other hand been accused by the real “chauvinists” of having sold out Chinese rights and interests, and a traitor to the Chinese race, because I had said that optionally learning Jawi does not make one less of a Malaysian - which I did during my first Internal Security Act detention in Muar in 1969.

I can still remember 44 years ago on the night of 8th November 1977 when DAP MPs supported PAS MPs in opposing the declaration of an emergency in Kelantan and a bill to enable the Federal Government to take over the administration of the Kelantan State Government.

DAP MPs opposed the emergency measure in Kelantan in Parliament, which was debated through the night until 2.45 am the next morning.

Nobody accused the DAP of being anti-Malay and anti-Islam then!

Let me ask this Bersatu leader, which is open all politicians in all parties based on Malay mono-ethnic ideology, whether any of them had gone to jail or sacrificed his qualification to be a Member of Parliament in defending the honour and dignity of an underaged Malay girl like the DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng in 1994?

The Malacca state general election is the proper time for one of the great lies and misinformation to be laid to rest.

Although Ismail Sabri has coined the “Keluarga Malaysia” slogan, he has to prove that he can live down his past.

It was only after he became Prime Minister that I found from the social media the leading racist role he played in demonising the DAP as anti-Malay and anti-Islam, especially over the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) ratification issue at the end of 2018.

The DAP leadership knew nothing about the ICERD ratification issue beforehand and we were taken by surprise by the then Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamad’s speech at the United Nations that Malaysia was going to ratify ICERD.

The ICERD ratification issue gave the Malay-first politicians the opportunity to go on a racist rampage and Ismail Sabri was one of the leading proponents.

We are still living with the consequences of the toxic politics of lies, misinformation, hatred, race and religion, so deftly mobilised during the ICERD ratification fiasco in 2018, whether it be the “Sheraton Move” conspiracy in February 2020 to topple a democratic and legitimate government and replace it with a backdoor and illegitimate government, or the deadly Covid-19 pandemic which had killed nearly 30,000 people and caused over 2.5 million Covid-19 infections in the past 22 months.

The Foreign Minister at that time is now back as the Foreign Minister.

I call on Saifuddin Abdullah to speak the truth that the ICERD ratification issue at the end of 2008 had nothing to do with the DAP although DAP was accused of being the instigator behind the issue.