DAP still backs Anwar as Pakatan chief

He was responding to Karpal’s statement yesterday demanding Anwar quit as the Pakatan Rakyat leader for his culpability in the Perak fiasco where the Pakatan Rakyat was asked to resign in favour of Barisan Nasional after three lawmakers defected last week.

“I appeal to saudara Karpal Singh as chair of the DAP to use internal party channels should he wish to change these policies or even criticise my leadership,” said Lim, who is also Penang chief minister.

DAP joined PKR and Pas in the Pakatan Rakyat electoral pact that won an unprecendented 81 parliamentary seats and four more states in the March 2008 general elections. The pact has since added Kuala Terengganu to the parliamentary opposition bench while BN lost two seats in the 222-seat parliament when the Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) quit the ruling coalition last year. There is one independent MP.

Lim said his party’s “commitment to a multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural Malaysia is not only an article of faith but a deep conviction in Bangsa Malaysia”.

“DAP is inclusive of all races and religions. We represent the interests and fight for the rights every Malaysian,” he said, adding the party is willing to undertake a transformational process that may be painful but necessary in the pursuit of those efforts.

“We have no alternative but to grow without compromising our basic principles.

The Bagan MP also said the Pakatan Rakyat leadership had also clearly endorsed a position that no individual party policy can be its policy without full unanimous approval from all three parties.

“DAP’s position on hudud and Islamic state is crystal clear and regardless of whatever support for  both hudud and the establishment of an Islamic State, whether from Pas or PKR, this will not be Pakatan Rakyat policy as long as DAP does not agree to it.,” he added, addressing one of Karpal’s long-standing grouse in the pact.

But he also cautioned the party can change its policies according to the wishes of its members.

“However, until today, there has been no requests to question or disturb the basic framework of co-operation between the 3 parties of DAP, Pas and PKR that makes up Pakatan Rakyat.

“As the party secretary-general, I am duty-bound to execute these policies. However should any member wish to change them, there are required to use proper party channels to do so and not use the BN-controlled media,” he warned, referring  to the furore caused by Karpal’s statement.

Lim also reiterated the party has been consistently urging the government to enact an anti-hopping law even before the Perak crisis.

“We have expressed the support of our 28 MPs. As BN does not have a 2/3 parliamentary majority, the support of DAP’s 28 MPs will be required to effect any constitutional amendment for such an anti-hopping law,” he said.

Karpal's compatriot Lim Kit Siang expressed "shock and hurt" over the party chairman's statement, saying the DAP should resolve any differences internally and not deflect efforts to "resolve both the grave economic and political crisis confronting Malaysians".

"The national economic crisis and the latest political crisis caused by Najib's coup de'tat must be the topmost concern for all Malaysians," said the Ipoh Timur MP in a rare public chastisement of his political colleague since the early years of the party.

"Malaysians are scandalized  that instead of uniting Malaysians to face the worst global economic crisis for 80 years, the Prime Minister-in-waiting Datuk Seri Najib Razak had  done the opposite – frittering  away further public confidence in engendering greater  national discord by engineering the Perak political crisis in the illegal and unconstitutional grab for power, resulting in the constitutional crisis of two Mentris Besar in Perak," Kit Siang said in a statement.

He took the opportunity to further hit out at Najib saying Malaysians in general and Perakians in particular were outraged over Barisan Nasional's move to topple the Pakatan Rakyat government.

"The world looks on  in disbelief at the political insensitivity and indifference of the prime minister-in-waiting on the imperative  to restore  public confidence at this critical stage of the nation by giving top priority to uniting Malaysians, by  actively creating not only a Perak but national political crisis," the DAP strongman added.

Meanwhile, Pas spiritual leader Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat said in Kota Bharu he will seek a clarification from Anwar about Karpal's statement.

"I do not want to comment on the matter and I want to ask Datuk Seri Anwar what is the truth," Bernama quoted him as saying after attending a Chinese New Year function here yesterday.

On the issue of party-hopping, he said such actions were contemptible and against the wishes of voters who chose their candidates.