Mat Sabu the next Khomeini, says MCA

PETALING JAYA - MCA has called Mohamad Sabu the next Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the making, taking a different tack from Umno’s offensive against the PAS deputy president for allegedly being a Communist sympathiser.

Khomeini was an Iranian religious and political leader who played an integral part in the Iranian Revolution that led to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979. He later became Iran’s Supreme Leader until his death in 1989.

The remarks about Mohamad, popularly known as Mat Sabu, were contained in an editorial contained within MCA party organ, The Guardian. Copies of the newsletter were distributed to participants of a conference organised here by the party’s think-tank.

“In a June interview... (Mat Sabu) found the late leader’s use of religion as a device of change refreshing seeing that, in his opinion, ulamas in Malaysia are keeping the powerful protected,” the editorial said.

“With such a revolutionary idol to look up to, Mat Sabu, if given a position of power, could easily follow in the path of the late Ayatollah and use religion as a platform for social change and dogmatic rule.”

“Wither democracy if this is the same ‘moderation’ PAS intends to showcase to the rakyat?”

MCA has been struggling to win back Chinese support since the 2008 general election, and has consistently tried to use PAS’s Islamic state aspirations to scare off voters from its main rival DAP.

Earlier today MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek said his party would quit Barisan Nasional (BN) if Umno tried to implement hudud law.

In recent weeks, Mohamad has come under immense criticism for allegedly glorifying Communist guerrilla Ahmad Indera as a true hero in the attack on Bukit Kepong police station in 1950.

Mohamad claimed trial yesterday to a criminal defamation charge over his alleged remarks, at the Sessions Court in Butterworth.

If found guilty of the offence under Section 500 of the Penal Code, the PAS leader face up to two years’ jail and/or a fine.

Mohamad was alleged to have defamed policemen and soldiers who defended the Bukit Kepong police station in a 1950 attack by communists.

The maverick politician also faces an alternative charge of defaming family members of the policemen and soldiers.

- Malaysian Insider