"To strip a person's citizenship, you need to amend the constitution. And to amend the constitution you need two-thirds majority in Parliament," said former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad today.
"So,
I ask that you give two-thirds majority to the BN government," Mahathir
said, in response to a question after giving a talk on national
security and the constitution in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur today.He was asked how the government would go about stripping away the citizenship of errant lawyers like Bar Council leaders and Ambiga, who continued to challenge the government and question the constitution.
The government needs to amend the constitution if it wants to strip off the citizenship of lawyers such as Bersih co-chair S Ambiga who go against the government.
"To strip a person's citizenship, you need to amend the constitution. And to amend the constitution you need two-thirds majority in Parliament," said former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad today.
"So, I ask that you give two-thirds majority to the BN government," Mahathir said, in response to a question after giving a talk on national security and the constitution in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur today.
He was asked how the government would go about stripping away the citizenship of errant lawyers like Bar Council leaders and Ambiga, who continued to challenge the government and question the constitution.
However, Mahathir did not go into the specifics of what he meant and what part of the constitution needed to be amended.
At present, a Malaysian can be stripped of his or her citizenship if he or she obtains citizenship from another country or exercises a right exclusive to the citizens of a country other than Malaysia, such as voting or using another country's travel documents. This is provided for under Article 24 of the federal constitution.
'Malays lost everything because they are lazy'
On another matter, Mahathir explained that Malays have lost all that they owned in their own land because of their lack of industriousness.
The
Malay rulers, he said, negotiated away their rule over the country to
the British by accepting as advisers the foreign residents, who then
ended up usurping the rule of the land."The British managed to conquer Malaya without losing a single soldier," he said.
The Malays themselves then gave away their economic power by letting non-Malays control trade and related activities.
"We let immigrants take over because we do not want to work and do not want to learn to do new things... we prefer to fish and plant paddy," lamented Mahathir.
All that the Malays are able to cling to now is political power, he said, though he worries that the current fractured landscape of the Malay politics will soon see them losing even that.
Nevertheless,
Mahathir credited the Malays for their wisdom in allowing non-Malays to
remain in Malaysia even after the country gained independence.This, he said, was good as Malaysia then did not suffer the fate of similar former colonies like Uganda, whose expulsion of immigrants after independence caused immediate economic hardship as the wealth owned by the immigrants was also shipped out.
Mahathir believes the Malays would now work hard to make sure they were able to hold their own in head-to-head competition with the non-Malays.
This would be done without government crutches which, he said, were still needed but nothing to be proud of as it speaks of how weak the Malays are and truly shows that they are not the ‘tuan’ some say they are.
"We must use the protections we now have to build our strengths until others can look at us and respect us for our strengths.".
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