Kit Siang: I never wanted to become PM
(FMT) – DAP parliamentary leader slams demonisation campaign claiming he wants top post to elevate his son, Lim Guan Eng, to the position of deputy prime minister.
DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang has hit back at claims that he wants to be prime minister after the next general election (GE14) in order to name his son, Lim Guan Eng, as his deputy.
Slamming the “vicious demonisation campaign” on social media, the Gelang Patah MP shot down accusations concerning his alleged political ambition.
“I have been in Malaysian politics for 51 years, and the thought of becoming prime minister of Malaysia has never entered my mind.”
Speaking at the Subang DAP anniversary dinner at Subang New Village last night, Lim said he was in politics because of “the Malaysian Dream” to build a nation where all citizens, regardless of race or religion, are united as Malaysians.
“DAP has always been a party for all Malaysians, and we were never a party for any one race.
“No person can be a Malaysian leader if he or she is against any one race or concerned only about the rights and interests of only one community,” he said.
In the run-up to this year’s Merdeka celebrations, Lim said Malaysians must consider why the country had performed so poorly in the international arena since achieving independence.
Lim also pointed to Malaysia’s ranking on the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from 1995-2006.
In 1995, he said, Malaysia had ranked 23rd out of 41 countries with an above-midpoint score of 5.28 on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean).
“If Malaysia had made a decimal improvement in the TI CPI score of 0.1 point each year the past 22 years, Malaysia’s present score would have been 7.48, or roughly translated into 74.8 out of a scale increased from 10 to 100, which would have ranked Malaysia 18 out of 176 countries.
“Unfortunately, despite all ‘thunder and lightning’ about anti-corruption in Malaysia, Malaysia’s TI CPI worsened with the TI CPI ranking falling to 55 out of 176 countries while the TI CPI score fell below the midpoint to 49 in the new scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).”
In contrast, he said, China and Indonesia which had ranked at the bottom in 1995, at 40th and 41st place, respectively, had made significant improvements.
If continued over the next two decades, he said, these improvements would see both countries overtaking Malaysia well before 2040, a decade before Prime Minister Najib Razak’s 2050 National Transformation (TN50) roadmap.
“The escalation of the Umno/BN demonisation campaign of lies, hate and fear against me is not because I have suddenly, after 51 years in politics, become the number one threat to the Umno/BN government, but an indication of the fear and even panic of some Umno/BN leaders and strategists that Umno/BN could lose in GE14,” he said.
