Our dear Gerkan leaders,
First of all we would like to congratulate everyone including Dr Koh Tsu Koon as Gerakan president, Deputy President Chang Ko Youn, Vice-Presidents Mah Siew Keong, Dr S. Vijayaratnam and Huan Cheng Guan and fellow Gerakan central committee members.
We would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Dr Teng Hock Nan who is now the president of the 'Chinese-controlled' Penang Gerakan.
Hence, we would clearly like to put down here that we, together with other fellow members, are totally disappointed with the way Gerakan has treated its Indian members in Penang.
Tan Sri Dr Koh and Dr Teng, we would like you to recall the meeting held among Indian leaders at our party headquarters in Penang after the 12 th general election. At that particular meeting, both of you promised to give Indians more opportunities at the top level of the party.
Lately, even during the national delegates conference, you asked members to vote for all races but you failed to act. It has been proven that the top leadership of Gerakan has failed to look into making Gerakan multiracial. Being multiracial is just a political gimmick.
We would also like to touch on the press statement by Huan Cheng Guan that more chances in Gerakan should be given to Indians and the failure to appoint A Mohan to a top party post in Penang shows that the current state leadership is biased.
For your information, Mohan has been a Gerakan member for 20 years while we have been Gerakan's men for the past 28 years. Till now, Gerakan has failed to appoint any long-serving Indian to the party’s top leadership. What a shame.
We would also like to take to task the party administration and membership bureau for failing to recruit or rather failing to accept and register new Indian members. In 2005, we submitted 60 over forms for a new branch in Penang and another 300 plus forms for another branch.
But during the last branch level AGM when we checked, to my shock all of the names were missing. Indians who wanted to join Gerakan in 2005 were disappointed with the way Gerakan handled their membership applications and with the attitude of party’s top leaders.
Friends of ours who had good representation and good ground work records intended to contest for branch youth chairpersons’ posts and later at he division and state level but could not do so. This shows that Gerakan is indirectly killing the political career of capable individuals.
Everyone is thinking that our boys are Gerakan mmebers, but it's a shame that we are actually not due to the carelessness and bad intentions of the party’s top leadership. If all these allegations of ours are not true and if the top leadership is sincere, the newly elected Penang Gerakan chairperson would have appointed Indians to top posts.
He instead gave a sarcastic statement that Indians will be appointed as certain bureau chairpersons. We are more capable than being just bureau chairperons. We are dare to say that if all membership of Indians are accepted, there will be more top Indian leaders in Gerakan today.
Whenever there is a new proposed Gerakan branch with many Indian members, the branch takes time to get approved. We’re saying this from our very own experience for we would have had our own branch since 2005 if all my submitted member applications were accepted.
Gerakan should accept the challenge by Huan Cheng Guan to recruit more non-Chinese into the national Gerakan committee as secretary-general, assistant secretary-general, treasurer and assistant treasurer and also to the central committee and central working committee.
But we bet the top Gerakan leadership including the ' de facto president' will not do this.
To all my fellow Indian members, we have been saying we love Gerakan and we are Satu Hati but if the leadership now fails to make changes, we should walk out. It doesn't mean we have to jump to another party, but walking out will be a big slap for Gerakan.
It will prove to 26 million Malaysians that Gerakan has failed to prove themselves as a multiracial party. We've got offers to join some other component party from BN but our love for Gerakan is true and I hope Gerakan leaders will open their eyes once for all and make the changes.
With the young blood that has been given the mandate to lead the party’s top leadership, I hope these leaders will make the changes. Certain former and current leaders are trying to control and select their cronies for the top leadership and we have to put an end to this.
If Gerakan is not willing to appoint Indians to top posts in Penang and at the national level, then it is a clear indication that for the next general election, no state or parliament seat will be given to us.
Saudara/saudari its time for us to wake up and make a stand on this. Satu Hati .
