 Sep 6: The act of distributing instant Malaysian citizenship to foreigners for political reasons is greater threat to the country than communists, said PAS vice president Salahuddin Ayub.
“Giving citizenship to foreigners and have them registered as voters is more dangerous than militant communists,” Salahuddin told Harakahdaily, in response to Mohamad Sabu's August 21 speech urging people to be wary of UMNO's twisting of the nation's history of independence.
The PAS deputy president has been the target of an intense media campaign by UMNO for stating that those who launched the famous attack in Bukit Kepong in 1950, killing scores of colonial-era policemen, were the true freedom fighters, and not as being depicted by official propaganda including by UMNO-leaning film makers.
The remark and the reactions which followed immediately resurrected a decades-old debate on the distortion of Malaysia's history of independence, with historians and politicians urging for a re-think of historical narrations as they could have been written to serve British colonialists who handed over power to a select group of leaders with whom they felt comfortable to deal.
 Salahuddin (left) meanwhile echoed the view expressed by many Pakatan Rakyat leaders when he said UMNO was exploiting the issue in order to divert attention from its scandals, including the recent revelations of foreigners being registered as voters as well as non-Malaysians suddenly being listed as citizens on the National Registration Department's database.
This prompted prime minister Najib Razak to admit irregularities in the electoral system as claimed by electoral reforms coalition Bersih 2.0, but however stopped short of giving any assurance that the problems would be solved before the impending general election.
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