‘Paper tiger Umno even lost Malay votes’

DAP secretary-general points out that Umno’s Malay support actually declined by more than 3% in Terengganu and Perlis and less than 1% in Pahang and Penang.

PETALING JAYA: Despite its vast resources and control over the mass media, the ruling Umno is a paper tiger in the making because its Malay votes suffered a dip in four states in the last polls, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said.

Mocking his political arch-rival in his opening remarks at the DAP re-election today, Lim said the result of 13th general election showed that Umno’s alleged fanning of racism fire and extremism have slowly lost relevance

“Its Malay support actually declined in four states, a significant decline of more than 3% in Terengganu and Perlis while a marginal decline of less than 1% in Pahang and Penang,” he said.

The Penang chief minister also pointed out that Umno only managed to increase its Malay votes nationally by only 1.2%.

“Umno is slowly becoming a paper tiger and the Malays are seeing Utusan Malaysia for what it is- a paper full of lies. Umno is stuck as its 4M model is coming to an end,” he said, adding that 4M includes mass media, government machinery, money and Mahathir politics.

Lim said the lack of new ideas in Umno prompted them to reintroduce draconian laws such as detention without trial under the proposed amendments to the Prevention of Crime Act (PCA).

On top of that, a “recycled” Bumiputera Economic Empowerment Programme was launched to feed Umno cronies with the alleged get-rich scheme, he added.

In conjunction with the re-election, Lim also took the chance to dish out the party’s post-election new campaign – the Malaysian Dream.

The campaign re-emphasises DAP’s call for people-centric democracy with minimum government, unity, integrity and competency as the criteria.

To achieve this, he urged party members to renew faith in the ideals of Merdeka, pursue political and economic democratisation and find way to free the country from middle income gap.

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