Rais' 'moral guide' taunt in poor taste, decries Lim

DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang took to task Information, Communication and Culture Minister Rais Yatim for taking an "unwarranted" and "in poor taste" dig in at electoral reform movement Bersih, while launching the 1Malaysia Moral Guide book yesterday.

"BN ministers and leaders are themselves most lacking in the moral values - such as discipline, respect, meritocracy, integrity, humility, courtesy and loyalty - expounded by the new publication," lambasted Lim in a statement.

Responding to Rais' taunt that every Bersih supporter would do well to learn the moral values in the book, he pointed to three recent occurrences that he claimed illustrated how BN ministers and leaders themselves set bad examples as ‘moral leaders'.

• The farce of the RM24,200 bid for WWW15 plate number for Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai, which 10 days later was announced as "for free";

• Blatant abuse of power by the Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, in exempting Isa Samad from Koperasi Permodalan Felda's (KPF) by-laws to enable him to become KPF chairperson.

• The vindictive and immoral halting of National Higher Education Fund (PTPTN) loans to Universiti Selangor (Unisel) students.

"BN ministers and leaders should first practise the 1Malaysia moral values before they take to the pulpit to preach to Malaysians," reminded Lim.

In fact, he argued that BN ministers and leaders are "the worst models" for the 1Malaysia policy and cannot be expected to stand as exemplars of 1Malaysia, let alone moral values.

In making derogatory references to the Bersih 3.0 participants when launching the book highlighting 1Malaysia's values, Lim said that Rais has "greatly offended the hundreds of thousands of Malaysians who attended the rally".