KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 12 — Barisan Nasional (BN) should rejoice that those extolling a racial ideology are now with its political foes, component party member Datuk Ti Lian Ker said today.
With the “ultra-Malays” like Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin now in their own party and in cahoots with the DAP, the BN coalition can close ranks and focus on rebuilding the spirit of moderation as espoused by its founding fathers to take the nation forward, he added.
“The BN leadership should be happy to be rid of any extremists or ultras at this juncture. We should be happy that these rotten apples are now in DAP's baskets,” the chairman of MCA’s religious harmony bureau said in a statement.
He alleged that the two prominent politicians now heading Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia have always embodied a “Malay first” ideology that impeded the multiracial and multireligious BN’s consensus policy from progressing.
“Let these Pribumi spirit or ‘I am Malay first’ be DAP's political baggage for now, since DAP had happily embraced them after years of attacking them,” he added.
The newly-registered Pribumi comprising mostly of Umno rebels have been in talks with its former political enemies in DAP and PKR to cobble together an alliance to take on the BN coalition at the next general elections due in 2018.
Ti who had earlier this month accused BN anchor Umno of under-appreciating its coalition partners and hurled criticisms against the Malay national party’s leaders sought to mollify his allies today.
He called on the BN components to unite under the leadership of coalition chairman and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and “charter the nation back to the spirit of the founding years of the Alliance and Barisan Nasional, gearing towards a moderate course of 1Malaysia in spirit, thoughts, words and actions”.
