Mah has crowd in stitches over ‘bullets’ and ‘chicken eggs’
KUALA LUMPUR: The soft-spoken Datuk Seri Mah Siew Keong got the floor in stitches when he mispronounced words like zi dan (bullets), making it sound like ji dan (chicken eggs).
“We are already very short of bullets. We must aim them at our enemy outside,” he said to laughter among the predominantly Chinese-speaking crowd.
The 56-year-old Gerakan president admitted how he had struggled to learn Chinese, including burning the midnight oil to perfect his Mandarin for the landmark MCA-Gerakan rally.
“While you were sleeping, I was learning Chinese,” he said to applause.
Mah’s self-deprecating humour lightened an otherwise serious and resolute show of unity between the two Barisan Nasional partners.
That determination was clear in the 40-minute address by the Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister, who took pains to show his party’s sincerity in trying to build a strong partnership with MCA.
Beneath all the laughter lay the urgency to join forces to woo the Chinese electorate that saw only 15% of them supporting Barisan in the last general election.
The effort to consolidate their position culminated in yesterday’s rally, the first for Gerakan in its 50 years’ history, and the 69-year-old MCA.
In May 2014, Mah wrestled back the Teluk Intan parliamentary seat in a by-election, notably with MCA lending a hand in securing Barisan’s victory.
Just a year earlier, Mah had lost the seat in the general election.
MCA deputy president Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong, who led the MCA team in the by-election, underlined the importance of working together and noted how they had won in a new village by a 65-vote majority.
Just a year ago Gerakan lost in the new village by some 390 votes.
Those votes were extremely crucial in helping Mah scrape through with an eventual 238-vote majority.
“We are not sure if all will turn out well for us, but one thing’s for sure, we have all to lose if we don’t cooperate,” Mah said of the new-found cooperation between both parties.