KUALA LUMPUR, May 27 — Lim Kit Siang asked today if DAP’s Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud is “too ahead of the times” for discarding racial politics in pursuit of the “Malaysian dream”, which he said was the same as that envisaged by Umno founder Datuk Onn Jaafar before he left the party.

The “Malaysian dream”, according to Lim, is when Malaysians of all creed and colour are able to identify themselves first by their nationality before their racial or religious backgrounds.

The DAP veteran suggested that the current crop of leaders in Umno are deaf to the “yearnings” of many Malaysian youths today to achieve this Malaysian dream.

“The Malaysian Dream is not a recent dream,” Lim said in a statement here. “It was the same dream which was envisioned by the great Johor Malay leader and founding Umno president Datuk Onn Jaafar in 1951 when he called on Umno to open its doors to non-Malays and to change the name of Umno to United Malayans National Organisation.”

But Onn, Lim pointed out, had to leave Umno as he appeared then to be “too ahead of the times”.

“Are Dyana... and the new generation of Malaysian youths who yearn and strive for a Malaysian Dream in 2014, 63 years after Datuk Onn Jaafar, also still ‘too ahead of the times’?”

Lim was responding to remarks made last night during a ceramah in Teluk Intan by several Umno leaders and former vice-chancellor of Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Tan Sri Dr Ibrahim Abu Shah who said that Dyana Sofya, DAP’s candidate for the poll, may have good looks but lacks the “inner beauty” needed to make a good leader.

Warning the crowd of a Barisan Nasional (BN) rally against voting for Dyana solely for her popularity, Ibrahim and other Umno leaders reminded them that BN candidate Datuk Mah Siew Keong’s experience counts much more than looks.

“Do we just want to choose a pretty face? Is that a criteria to choose a leader?” Ibrahim told a crowd of thousands in Taman Melor here.

“Gentlemen, beauty is not just physical. It counts for outer and inner. If I were to compare DAP’s candidate and BN’s, I would say BN’s candidate is prettier than DAP’s.”

Lim, in rebuking Ibrahim, said Dyana Sofya is testimony of the former UiTM vice-chancellor’s alleged failure to turn students into “Umno robots” and kill the idealism of the true Malaysian dream.

Just as Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had been wrong to blame Dyana Sofya’s mother Yammy Samat for failing to turn her daughter into an Umno loyalist like her, Ibrahim was no different, the DAP adviser said.

“It is wrong for Ibrahim to take it as a personal failure and affront that one of the UiTM students is a DAP candidate in pursuit of the Malaysian dream,” Lim said.

“In this new politics of the future, the old politics of race will be replaced by the politics of Malaysian nationalism based on issues of justice, freedom, accountability and good governance,” he added.

Dyana Sofya, who is Lim’s former political aide, will be going up against two-term former Teluk Intan member of parliament, Gerakan president Datuk Mah Siew Keong in the May 31 by-election.