COMMENT Juxtaposed, the two events perfectly reflected the existential dilemma of the DAP.

On the one hand, you had its durable adviser officiating a roundtable discussion yesterday on the high incidence of Indian youth in violent crime; on the other, the Orang Asli rights activist Bah Tony, who surprisingly joined the party a little more than a year ago, resigns abruptly from its Perak wing, albeit, without apparent public rancour.

With its right hand, the DAP is trying its considerable best to shift the public perception that it is a Chinese-dominated party; with its left, it continues to lose significant recruits to its ostensibly multiracial platform because of the warlord politics of oligarchic elements in its Perak leadership...