Ex-MCA veep jibes Anthony Loke for ‘extra stab’ label of Yeo Bee Yin’s Bossku celebratory cause

 

YOU should stop disguising authority as moral righteousness. There is no necessity to describe Yeo Bee Yin’s remarks as an “extra stab” now.

In effect, you did not calm the situation when you re-opened an issue and escalated it in an unnecessarily and deliberate manner.

If at the same time, you had admonished firebrand UMNO Youth chief Datuk Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh for his ‘blinded loyalty’ to the party’s former president, hence the public ruckus, at least you would be seen as being fair to both sides.

Your DAP comrade may have been politically incorrect. She had paid the price. She was publicly reprimanded. That should have been the end of it.

Yet you chose to pile on, publicly damaging her reputation and dignity while exposing DAP to another credibility crisis.

Can DAP be trusted to fight and defend the minorities rights or fight for a more level playfield as promised?

Suppression is not leadership. Suppression is power being exercised downward, suppressing a subordinate or a weaker link to show power or authority.

By accusing her remarks as an “extra stab”, you are exaggerating and aggravating or sending a clear warning to everyone else in the party: speak at your own peril or speak only within approved limits.

‘Sending fear wave’

Today it is Yeo. Tomorrow it could be anyone of your 40 MPs or everyone who is in a weaker position or in the minority. No wonder your 40 MPs have been quieter than MCA’s two MPs as a government backbencher.

You lead a party that calls itself the “Democratic Action Party” yet you treat internal disagreement as something to be admonished or punished rather than debated.

You are not defending discipline; instead, you are policing thought and speech. That is selective tolerance, not democracy.

When you as party secretary-general publicly de-legitimise the words of an elected MP, you undermine her ability to do her job. How do you expect Yeo as the Puchong MP to be a voice for the people when her freedom is now being curtailed from within her own party?

If this is now your standard – silence over substance or optics over principle – then you should stop invoking democracy as DAP’s moral banner. Democracy is dying a slow death in DAP.

The party’s founders fought for the right to speak without fear. You are now telling your own MPs to tread carefully or be cut down.

Tan Sri Lim Kit Siang built his legacy defending democratic rights and freedom of expression. Your actions raise an uncomfortable question: do you still believe in those principles or only in controlling the narrative?

Remember this famous quote: “I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

If that principle no longer applies under your leadership, then be honest with the public, DAP has moved from defending free speech to managing it to remain or hold onto the powers of the government. 

A lawyer by training, Datuk Seri Ti Lian Ker was a former MCA vice-president and former Youth and Sports deputy minister.

The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of   MMKtT.

- Focus Malaysia.