KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26 – Datuk Seri Dr Salleh Said Keruak said it was not Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak who played the race card, but his detractors in their bid to oust the Prime Minister. The Communications and Multimedia minister was commenting on Channel News Asia’s special report which discussed Najib’s position and compared the pre-National Day celebration Bersih or ‘Yellow Shirt’ rally to the ‘Red Shirt’ rally on Malaysia Day.
Salleh said the report presented the first rally as noble in intention and the second as being “just about racism”. He recalled that former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had immediately after the 2013 general election said that Barisan Nasional did not do well because the Chinese no longer supported the government.
“Dr Mahathir blamed Najib for pandering and giving in to the Chinese and after ‘wasting time’ with the Chinese, they still did not vote for the government,” said Salleh. Writing on his blog sskeruak.blogspot.com, the minister noted that Dr Mahathir had expressed the view that Najib should have just focused on the Malay voters.
“Dr Mahathir then said to save UMNO and Barisan Nasional, Najib has to resign. If not, then the government may fall in the next general election because Najib no longer has the support of the Chinese. So, it was not the prime minister who played the race card. It was his critics who played the race card as an excuse to oust him,” he said.
“Singaporean analyst Dr Ooi Kee Beng, one of the observers featured in the 30-minute report, shared this view. Dr Ooi agrees with this when he said that UMNO needs to reinvent itself to get the people’s support but Najib, who no longer has Chinese support, will first need to resign. In not so many words, Dr Ooi said that it was not Najib who played the race card but that the race card is being played against Najib, and that Najib is as much the victim in this racial game,” he added.
