Kit Siang: Sg Kandis will show if Najib has succeeded in linking Islam with kleptocracy

PETALING JAYA: The Sungai Kandis by-election will be a crucial test whether former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has succeeded in equating Islam with kleptocracy in Malaysia, said Lim Kit Siang (pic).

The Iskandar Puteri MP said it would also be a crucial test as to whether Najib’s politics still has traction in Malaysian politics.

Lim said that in the GE14 campaign, one of Najib’s main strategies was to demonise DAP and Pakatan Harapan by selling the line that if Umno was defeated, the Malays in Malaysia will perish as DAP, allegedly anti-Malay and anti-Islam, would dominate the government with him as Prime Minister.

He claimed that Umno however lost its unchallenged position as the political party with the most Malay support because there were sufficient Malay voters who were intelligent and sophisticated enough to reject Najib’s politics.

“They do not want, in particular, to equate Malays and Islam with kleptocracy.

“This vicious and toxic politics of race, religion, hate, fear and lies have returned in the Sungai Kandis by-election campaign of Umno,” said Lim.

He said that with the support of PAS led by its President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang, the Umno by-election campaign theme is the lie that Malays and Islam are "under threat" under Pakatan Harapan.

“Do MCA and MIC support the Umno/PAS by-election campaign theme that Malays and Islam are perilously under threat under the Pakatan Harapan government?

“This is why I am asking for the third time for the MCA and MIC national leaderships to declare whether they want the Umno candidate to win or lose in the Sungai Kandis by-election,” said Lim.