By Lim Kit Siang, MP for Gelang Patah
Let me give a double advice to the MCA deputy president Wee Ka Siong: Don’t tell a bare-faced lie and don’t be caught immediately with such downright dishonesty.
Ka Siong committed both sins today when he rebutted my media conference statement in Batu Pahat yesterday that the MCA President, Liow Tiong Lai had missed a “golden opportunity” to say “No” to the Prime Minister and UMNO President Datuk Seri Najib Razak who had attended the launch of the MCA’s “Stronger Together” programme at Tunku Abdul Rahman University College in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday that MCA cannot accept Najib’s unilateral and arbitrary announcement in Alor Star last Thursday that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud.
This was because what Najib said was not the original Barisan Nasional stand, and furthermore, violates an important BN principle that any change of Barisan Nasional policy must be the result of the consensus of all component parties and not unilaterally and arbitrarily by any one party, even if it is UMNO.
Ka Siong should know better than anyone that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government’s stand, even going back to the UMNO, MCA and MIC founders like Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Tan Cheng Lock, Tun Tan Siew Sin and Tun V.T. Sambanthan was that hudud was inconsistent with the secular 1957 constitution.
When did the Barisan Nasional Federal Government change this fundamental position and why did the MCA support such a fundamental policy change?
Ka Siong’s bare-faced lie is claiming that Tiong Lai had said “No” to Najib in front of the Prime Minister on Saturday, rejecting Najib’s statement in Alor Star last Thursday that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud.
What is unfortunate for Ka Siong is that he is immediately caught telling a bare-faced lie, as this is easily proven by referring to Tiong Lai’s speech or the MCA newspaper Star’s report of the speech – which showed that Tiong Lai missed the “golden opportunity” to tell Najib in his presence that MCA repudiated the Prime Minister’s Alor Star statement that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud.
