Kit Siang slams Umno bloggers as political desperadoes

By Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani - The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 28 — Veteran lawmaker Lim Kit Siang condemned Umno bloggers on their campaign to paint the DAP as a communist party.

Lim told The Malaysian Insider that the tactic used by governing party is “gutter politics at its worse”.

“This is gutter politics at its worse of the political desperadoes who does not have any political issues against DAP. DAP’s record have shown that it is a patriotic Malaysian party dedicated to the improvement and welfare of all Malaysians and races.

“DAP leaders have paid the price for their courage on their convictions and have not wavered on our political stand. It should not distorted and perverted,” he said.

Umno blogs have been working overtime in trying to make the DAP as the country’s new public enemy number one by labelling it and its leaders as communists in an effort to shore up Malay support.

An Umno blog, Parpukari, even went as far as caricaturing Bukit Kepayang assemblyman and Selangor state executive councillor Ronnie Liu of the DAP in a communist uniform.

Lim’s confident Malaysians would not fall into the trap.

“I am really skeptical if they can gain support but if they can demonstrate either DAP or Pakatan are wrong in our policies and programmes or if Umno and Barisan Nasional have better policies and programmes and not in a campaign of lies and falsehood. I also have trust in the Malaysian electorate,” he added.

Its Seputeh MP Teresa Kok was amused by Umno’s latest tactic and called it “archaic”.

“If you really want to paint DAP as communist party then why did they ask the chairman of the China communist party Hu Jintao to come here. Why did Najib lead a trade delegation to China and even invest in the country. Malaysia has also given mega-projects to Chinese companies. So who is closer to the China's communist party compared to DAP? I think they have nothing better but to make DAP look ugly ,” she said.

She added that if Umno persists in using the race card to divide Malaysians then it would be difficult to achieve Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s slogan of 1 Malaysia.

Political analyst James Chin was not surprised with the smear campaign.

“They have been doing that for quite a long time already. Their strategy is actually quite simple, they paint DAP as communist and anti-Islam. They also paint PKR as anti-Islam and anti-Malay and a traitor party. And they paint PAS as a deviationist party so this is part of the overall strategy,” Chin said.

He explained that the Umno blogs are only used to “reinforce the pro-Umno crowds”.

“It will not work because if you look at the number of blogs in Malaysia, the country has the largest number of socio-political blogs in the region. The ratio is about one pro-establishment to ten anti-establishment blogs so they are really being outnumbered. The aim of the pro-Umno blogger is not to convince but to reinforce the pro-Umno crowds. That is why there are very few pro-Umno blogs in English, the majority are in Malay. They are there to reinforce the brand and not so much to sell the brand,” he said.

Another analyst, Khoo Kay Peng, questioned why Umno was labelling DAP as communists when the country recently welcomed China’s president Hu Jintao.

“It senseless and not very classy for them to do that. You call DAP communist and then you roll down the red carpet when the president of the biggest communist country in the world came to Malaysia then telling the whole world that this is your main trade partner in this region.

I think it is not very wise. DAP is a social democratic party, it is a little bit middle left but I do not think that it is a party of communism,” Khoo said.

He added that Umno bloggers should do better in their attacks against DAP.

“If Umno bloggers are paid to do this work then I don’t think they are doing a good job. You cannot just put a label like that but what they should do is to provide good oppositions on issues and ways that the Pakatan state are being run,” he said.