KUALA BESUT, July 15 — Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders condemned Umno’s Datuk Tajuddin Abdul Rahman for his reckless and provocative claim that the DAP’s Karpal Singh would lead a republic should the opposition pact ever control Putrajaya.

Yesterday, the deputy agriculture minister was reported as saying that the DAP chairman would become president of Malaysia and turn the constitutional monarchy into a republic if the party and its allies PAS and PKR topple the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition from power.

“Umno leaders have to resort to such despicable, inflammatory and seditious racist lies and provocations,” DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang (picture) said in a statement here.

“(It) is an indication of the increasing desperation of certain Umno leaders who feel that their irresponsible and reckless politics of race is fighting a losing battle with a more informed, intelligent and discerning electorate throughout the country,” he added.

Tajuddin had also flashed the racial card when he reportedly warned Kuala Besut voters, who are predominantly Malay, that the largely Chinese DAP would helm the east coast state even if PAS won the constituency in the July 25 by-election.

A PAS win will see both BN and PR each holding 16 state seats, triggering a hung assembly. Should such a scenario pan out, Terengganu Sultan Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin would be obliged to choose the new mentri besar whom he believes commands the confidence of the majority of the assembly, paving the way for the possibility of PAS ruling the state.

Lim suggested that Tajuddin’s remarks were out of line with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s call for “national reconciliation”, and his Malaysia’s “Global Movement of the Moderates” initiative.

“Tajuddin was doing his worst in spouting the most irresponsible and reckless form of extremism in the Kuala Besut by-election... making a total mockery of the pledge by the contestants that the by-election will be a model of “Ramadan politics” of restraint and morality to show respect to the holy month,” Lim said.

Meanwhile, PAS central working committee member Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad expressed his disbelief over Tajuddin’s remarks here.

“The issue has provoked me,” he conceded, then immediately stopping himself from criticising Tajuddin, saying that “such wild allegations are not worth commenting on.”

Other remarks made by Tajuddin yesterday include claims that the DAP will allegedly dismantle the civil service, amend the Federal Constitution and stop any attempts by PAS to establish an “Islamic state”.

“The Sultan is the head of our religion. The Agong is a Muslim. If we become a republic, Karpal Singh then becomes the president. He would be your chief,” he reportedly said.