Explain your role in May 13, Kit Siang to Dr M

Picking on Thamrin Ghaffar's allegation, the DAP stalwart tells the former premier to clear the air.

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KUALA LUMPUR:  DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang today alluded that former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad is one of those behind the May 13 racial riots.

“Yesterday during two ceramah in Johor, former deputy prime minister Ghafar Baba’s son Thamrin revealed that the May 13 was due to a mini-coup by a group of men in Umno to topple Tunku [Abdul Rahman]. Former foreign minister Ghazali Shafie in the 1980s said that Mahathir was involved.

“This shows that I am not involved in the May 13 incident. I was not even in KL from May 11 to 13, 1969. I was in Sabah,” he said during a press conference at the DAP headquarters.

Lim also urged Mahathir to clear the air on Thamrin’s revelation.

On the same note, the DAP leader took a swipe at Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak for reminding the people of this lie – Lim’s involvement.

“They even have a candidate who keeps saying this lie in and out of Parliament – Zulkifli Noordin. Najib is saying 1Malaysia but he is dividing the people,” he said.

Lim is also disappointed that BN is playing the race and religion cards against him.

“There are rumours that I am anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-Malay monarchs. These are all lies. This shows Najib’s insincerity in signing the Transparency International – Malaysia’s integrity pledge,” he said.

Najib had signed an election integrity pledge with the NGO two months ago and the move was aimed at showing the ruling coalition’s seriousness in fair game in GE13.

Lim also urged his BN opponent and Johor menteri besar Abdul Ghani Othman to ensure a level playing field while campaigning in Gelang Patah.

Both Lim and Ghani would be facing off each other on May 5 for the Gelang Patah seat.

“Let’s begin by ensuring that the Battle for Gelang Patah is clean, fair and done in a gentlemanly style. It does not matter who wins or loses,” said Lim.

He revealed that during his campaign rounds he was well received by the people in Gelang Patah. However there were BN campaigners distributing a 28-page booklet that claimed that Lim was anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-Malay monarchs.

“It is despicable acts by wretched people,” he said.

Big brother Umno

On a related matter, he also took a swipe at Umno for continuing its hegemonic attitude towards its partners in BN.

Last night, Najib announced that the Gelang Patah parliament seat would be returned to MCA in the next general election.

“I want to tell you, Gelang Patah will go back to MCA in five years. This is just a temporary occupation license (TOL), the seat has always belonged to MCA,” Najib was quoted as saying at a BN meet-the-people session last night.

Commenting on Najib’s announcement, he said Najib’s statement did not make sense because Umno is a dominant party whereas MCA acts as a subordinate.

“It is a joke of the year. It is sheer nonsense. How can you borrow a seat when one is a strong and the other is a weak party. It is equivalent to a highway robbery,” Lim said.

In another development, Lim announced that Independent candidate Yew Tian Hoe is pulling out of the race for the Aulong state seat.

This means there would now be a straight fight involving DAP’s Leow Thye Yih and Gerakan’s Soo Kay Ping.

The DAP had last week sacked Yew for contesting as an independent

Lim thanked Yew for the decision as the straight fight will “now consolidate the votes for change”.