Ex-minister suggests DAP join BN for national reconciliation

KUALA LUMPUR: Former Information Minister Tan Sri Zainuddin Maidin yesterday suggested that DAP join the Barisan Nasional ( BN) to ensure that there is Chinese representation in the Malaysian government.

He said this would obviously be diffcult for DAP and BN and their supporters but needs to be done in the interest of harmony and political stability.

“It will certainly be difficult for the DAP to take the step (offer to join the BN) and likewise for the BN to accept, but this matter must be seen in the context of Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s call for national reconciliation following the ‘Chinese tsunami’ against the BN in Sunday’s 13th General Election (GE13) which turned out to be a bitter pill for the country,” he said in his blog Zamkata.

He said the Chinese who were now in a state of euphoria had yet to feel the pain (of not being represented in the government), but in the intermediate term, will realise the big mistake they had made (in rejecting the BN en bloc).

In GE13, BN won 133 parliamentary seats out of the 222 at stake to again form the government with a simple majority while Pakatan Rakyat took 89.

Najib who took his oath of office as Prime Minister before the Yang diPertuan Agong on Monday, will not be having Chinese representation in the Cabinet to formed. This is because the leadership of MCA, which only won seven of the 37 parliamentary seats contesed by the BN component party, has decided to forego representation from the party in Najib’s new cabinet. Gerakan, another dominant Chinese component in the BN, was also rejected by Chinese voters, winning just one seat.

Zainuddin said: “The Chinese community which had hoped for the destruction of the Malay dominated BN has been presented by the DAP a government without any Chinese leaders.”

As such, DAP is facing tremendous pressure from the community which is disappointed in not getting the government as promised by DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang and Parti Keadilan Rakyat ( PKR) advisor Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, he said.

“So we can see their situation is like ‘worms in heat’, winning big but not capturing Putrajaya.

“And because of this, they want to go back to the streets to cover up their failure besides trying to divert attention from the lies they been peddling by blaming others,” he said.

He said the path for the DAP to calm down the Chinese community was to offer itself to join the government, because it had proven itself in securing the support of Chinese voters by winning 38 ( parliamentary) seats against the MCA’s seven. — Bernama