Gobind dares Najib to appoint non-Malay DPM

Gobind said 1 Malaysia ‘is not a policy that is going to see the light of day’ under Barisan Nasional. — File pic

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 9 — A DAP lawmaker has challenged Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to appoint a non-Malay deputy prime minister in the spirit of his 1 Malaysia concept, which stresses national unity.

“I dare Najib Razak to appoint a Chinese or Indian deputy prime minister now,” Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo told some 800 people at a party fundraising dinner in Petaling Jaya last night.

The practising lawyer claimed 1 Malaysia “is not a policy that is going to see the light of day” under Barisan Nasional (BN) due to its racially-divisive politics.

“Do you honestly think that this will work in Barisan Nasional?” he asked the partisan crowd.

“I’ve said many times and I say it again. Look at Barisan Nasional itself — Umno, MCA, MIC. Umno for the Malays, MCA for the Chinese, MIC for the Indians. You talk about 1 Malaysia, one family. You don’t even have that in Barisan Nasional.”

Much ink has been spilled recently over who de facto opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim will appoint as deputy prime minister should Pakatan Rakyat (PR) wrest Putrajaya from BN.

Utusan Malaysia claimed two weeks ago that Anwar had promised DAP national adviser Lim Kit Siang the post in such an event, prompting a round of denials by opposition leaders.

Anwar later clarified that every coalition leader, regardless of race, had a shot at becoming deputy prime minister, so long as the decision was “made with consensus” among PR component parties.

Every deputy prime minister since Malaysia’s independence has been held by a Malay from Umno.

Gobind, dubbed “The Little Lion of Puchong”, said that 1 Malaysia was no different from the Malaysian Malaysia concept championed by the DAP in the 1960s, and claimed BN co-opted the idea only after its poor showing in the last general election.

“Those days when our leaders talked loud about Malaysian Malaysia, they were arrested and sent to jail. It was seditious. You could not even question having 1 Malaysia,” he said.

“But after March 2008, suddenly Barisan Nasional realised that it’s time for them to talk about unity, it’s time for them to change,” said the son of party veteran and national chairman Karpal Singh. - Malaysian Insider