PORTRAIT OF ANOTHER DAP TURNCOAT? We could have averted May 13 - founder

SAD: 'Tragic riots could have been averted'

KUALA LUMPUR (NST): A FOUNDER of the DAP regrets leading the party to unexpected victory in 13 parliamentary seats and, among others, a sizable number of state seats in Selangor in the 1969 general election as this may have indirectly contributed to the May 13 incident.

Goh Hock Guan, the man who gave the party its name and designed its "rocket" symbol, wished in retrospect that the DAP victory had been smaller as this might have possibly averted the "national tragedy".

"There is a very, very, big connection between the DAP (opposition) victory and May 13. I wish I had entered fewer DAP candidates in the elections as this may have possibly prevented the riots," he said in an interview.

The then secretary-general of the party said the eventual electoral stalemate in Selangor, where the opposition led by the DAP and the Alliance had almost the same number of seats each, might have been one of the factors that contributed to the disturbance.

"The stalemate meant that a state government could not have been formed in Selangor. It was too much of a victory for the opposition for some people to handle," Goh said, taking pains not to directly blame the DAP for the riots.

Goh had won in the then Bungsar parliamentary constituency by beating the Alliance's (MCA's) Lew Sip Hon in the 1969 general election.

The 78-year-old architect and town planner felt that he should have given the body politic of the Alliance more time to come to terms with the possibility of a large opposition win in 1969.

"I remember Tun Abdul Razak telling me in 1974 that I had effectively destroyed the Alliance (by defeating, among others, the MCA candidates in 1969)," he said, adding that the second prime minister had asked him then to join forces with the Barisan Nasional to rebuild the country.

Goh, who left the DAP in 1974 to join Gerakan, said he had envisaged the DAP as a multiracial party open to all to take a young Malaysia forward.

"The four boosters of the rocket were to be the Malays, Chinese, Indians and the people of Sabah and Sarawak. It's a shame that the DAP now is a party of Chinese and Indians," the owner of internationally-acclaimed architectural firm Goh Hock Guan and Associates said.

Goh said the DAP (without substantial Malay support today) represented the anti-thesis of the BN which had a multiracial character.

On Datuk Seri Najib Razak, he said the prime minister was following his father's footsteps in garnering the support of all the races in taking the nation forward.

"I hope he will continue with the momentum and tempo of his broad-based policies to look after the interests of all Malaysians."

On DAP's electoral pact with Pas, he said he had always found it difficult to reconcile his personal politics of multiracialism with the Islamic party's religious objectives.

"This is the trouble in the pact between the DAP and Pas. The DAP will be helping Pas win (all). This is the truth. It will be a pyrrhic victory for the DAP."

On his falling out with DAP adviser and former party secretary-general Lim Kit Siang "who was closer to me than my brother" at one point, he said victory in the 1969 general election had an unexpected effect on the latter and a few other members of parliament.

"I had it out with Kit Siang. This was because before I knew what had happened, the man who had been driving an old Fiat car which I bought for 500 dollars had bought a Mercedes Benz.

"I criticised him and others for this at a central executive committee meeting. They did not like it."

This and his contrary stand with the party on the "ownership" of the Straits of Malacca, which he insisted should be an international waterway, put paid to his continued presence in the party.

Goh said another reason why he left was his unhappiness over the way in which the DAP had wanted him "to bankroll its branches as I was a successful architect even then".

Read more: Hock Guan rues 1969 DAP win - General - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general/hock-guan-rues-1969-dap-win-1.223428#ixzz2LnN7fwnH