PN candidate: Don't end up like Patani and Singapore Malays

 

STATE POLLS | A Perikatan Nasional candidate said Malay political power must be ensured or else the race will suffer the same plight as those in Patani or Singapore.

Kok Lanas candidate Mohamed Farid Zawawi told a ceramah in Ketereh last night that Malays in Patani and Singapore were terpencil (isolated) and their culture eroded.

"It is not enough to be strong in our religion. We need political strength to ensure that the interest of our race and religion is preserved. We don't want to be isolated.

"People in Patani, Southern Thailand hold on to their religion dearly. However, they have no political power. In the end, what happened to them?

"They are isolated. They have no country, no state. The people of Patani are Muslims. They have the same skin colour as us... But without political power, the people of Patani can go nowhere. They are just a minority in Thailand, where the majority are Buddhists," he said.

In Singapore, said Farid (above), Malays are losing their identity and wish to be known only as Singaporeans.

"This island was once controlled by Malays. If you are in a Malay taxi or Grab car, if we ask whether they are Malay, they will respond that they are Singaporean.

"We are asking about his race, not nationality. Only when I ask again he replied he is a Singaporean Malay. This means that racial identity in Singapore has vanished.

"This meant that the dogma and brainwashing by the PAP government in Singapore over the decades had turned the Malays of Singapore into something that is no longer Malay," he added.

PN's Kok Lanas candidate Mohamed Farid Zawawi

Popular vote

Farid said what worries him was that DAP and other non-Muslim MPs are now part of the government, despite their minority status.

He said the political power of non-Muslims can be further enhanced, pointing to how the PAP managed to win 87 percent of the seats despite winning only 61 percent of the popular vote in Singapore.

"Imagine if we don't defend the seats we have in Kelantan, who else will do it for us? If the brown-skinned people don’t rule this land, do we expect the yellow-skinned people to defend our religion and state? Impossible.

"What concerns me is that although they only won 45 percent of the popular vote, they can redraw the election boundaries, just as how they control two-thirds of the seats in Parliament today," he said.

Farid is a Bersatu supreme council member. He is facing BN's Ahmad Deraman in a straight fight. Kok Lanas had elected a representative from BN since 2004. However, PAS has been closing the gap over the years. - Mkini