Mah Siew Keong, the new viral video star, takes it in stride

KUALA LUMPUR: Gerakan president Datuk Seri Mah Siew Keong jokingly said he would continue burning the midnight oil to improve his Mandarin proficiency.

Mah said this in response to last week’s joint rally with MCA where he flubbed a few lines during his 40-minute speech, leaving his audience amused.

Responding lightheartedly to news that videos of his mistakes have since gone viral, Mah, who is Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister, said that while everyone else was sleeping, he was up trying to improve his language fluency.

“As you know, I’m not Chinese educated, but I accept that I still have a lot to learn, and I accept my mistakes during the rally,” Mah said after attending a Malaysian Palm Oil Council event earlier Tuesday.

“The whole speech spoke about unity, and how we should not create more disunity – but some people focused on those three lines,” he added.

During the MCA-Gerakan “Stronger Together” rally last Saturday (Jan 6), Mah in his speech in Mandarin had mistakenly used “bullets” instead of “eggs” and “tide” instead of “peak”.

However, the fact that someone stitched together a video of his mistakes, he said, showed how political attacks would take form as the 14th general election (GE14) gets closer.

“As we move closer to GE14, the attacks are going to be personal ones.

“They are not going to be about your policy record, or what you have done for the rakyat.

“It’s just cybertroopers,” he added.