KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 24 — Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak has mocked DAP’s Lim Kit Siang for seeking to debate the prime minister, pointing out that Lim was only a party leader and not the head of the federal opposition.
The communications and multimedia minister pointed out that it should be for Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to participate in such an event, and said Lim would need to replace her before he may take on Datuk Seri Najib Razak in any debate.
“Maybe Kit Siang has forgotten he is just the chairman of DAP. He is not even the leader of Pakatan Harapan so that does not put him at the same level as the prime minister, who is the chairman of Barisan Nasional.
“If Kit Siang is Pakatan Harapan’s leader or the shadow prime minister then this gives him some leverage to demand that Najib debate him,” Salleh wrote on his blog last night.
Lim is DAP’s parliamentary leader; the party’s acting chairman is Tan Kok Wai, who assumed the position after the death of Karpal Singh.
Lim made the call for a televised debate against Najib as part of his statements fending off allegations that DAP were against Islam and Malays.
His party has been on the back foot since Umno shaped the contest for the next general election as a direct confrontation between it, as the representative of the Malay community, and DAP as the proxy for the ethnic Chinese.
The strategy plays on the Malay community’s continued perception of the DAP as being Chinese dominated as well as their fears of being ruled by the latter community.
Lim and DAP have repeatedly denied that they are against Islam and the Malays, and tried to reassure the Malay community that the party would not be able to take control of the government on its own.
