KUALA LUMPUR, March 13 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed warned today that Malaysia could become like Singapore if the Chinese community here continues to support DAP’s alleged dream of complete political and economic dominance in Malaysia.
The former prime minister claimed that nothing good will come of Chinese dominance in politics or the economy — as has happened in neighbouring Singapore — as Malaysia is a multi-cultural society mostly made up of the Malays.
“In the 13th General Election, the DAP dangled before the eyes of the Chinese that this time (kali ini) they can grab both political and economic dominance,” he said in his latest posting on his blog, chedet.cc.
“They point to the Perak model where when Pakatan won the head of Government was a Malay but he was totally subservient to the DAP (Chinese).
“When the Pakatan Government with Nizar of PAS as the MB was brought down, the DAP told the Chinese that they had lost a Chinese Government. The Chinese in Perak have since become anti-BN,” he added.
He was referring to Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin, the PAS leader who helmed Perak for 10 months in 2008 in a DAP-dominated government before a series of defections led to Barisan Nasional’s (BN) return to power in the silver state.
Dr Mahathir claimed that the DAP is taking advantage of the fact that the Malays today are divided between Umno and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) partners PKR and PAS, which gives DAP all the leverage it needs.
Explaining, he said the split support among the Malays would mean that all three Malay-based parties — Umno, PKR and PAS — would need to rely on Chinese support to win an election.
In such a situation, he alleged that DAP would not need to be directly in charge as they would have already worked out an arrangement with their PR partners where they would have their prime minister of choice under their thumb.
“Physically holding office is not necessary. If the Prime Minister is totally under the control of the DAP then it would become a Chinese dominated Government,” he said, adding that the DAP could very well see their so-called vision come true as soon as the next national polls if the trend of declining support for the ruling BN coalition continues.
Dr Mahathir insisted that the power-sharing formula now practised by BN — especially with the recent decision by MCA to rejoin the Cabinet after initially refusing to do so due to their poor outing in last year’s general election — is still the best way forward for the country.
He stressed that the DAP’s alleged plan to dominate the country’s politics and economy would only perpetuate a culture where each race will only look out for its own interests above the collective interests of the nation.
“Forget the idea of dominating all fields, of dominating both politics and economics. Go back to the idea of sharing. It will not be forever. It will be only for the duration when the Malays through their numbers dominate politics and the Chinese through their business acumen and money dominate the economy.
“Once the Malays and other indigenous people gain a fair share of the economic wealth of this country, they will lose their fear of Chinese domination. At that stage the Chinese share of political power would be enhanced.
“It may take years but that is as much as we can expect for as long as we insist on being identified by our racial origins,” he said.
BN is currently in a straight tussle with PKR in the Kajang state by-election this March 27. The ruling pact has put MCA vice-president Chew Mei Fun as their candidate against PKR president Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.
