MP SPEAKS | Communications and Multimedia Minister Saifuddin Abdullah will reply in the 2021 ministerial winding-up tomorrow in Parliament.

Will he come clean to admit that the 2018 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) fiasco was solely his own making when he was foreign minister in Pakatan Harapan government and that the DAP knew nothing about the proposed ICERD ratification although the party was the target of demonisation for being anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-royalty?

I was in China on a visit when the ICERD fiasco first blew up at the end of 2018.

On Nov 19, 2018, the then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the ratification of ICERD would entail an amendment to the Federal Constitution, which was “an impossible thing to do” without a two-thirds parliamentary majority.

On Nov 24, 2018, in a speech at the Malaysian Association of Jiansu Annual Gala Dinner in Souchou, China, I said that no Malaysian would want Malaysia to ratify ICERD at the price of another May 13 racial riots in the country as there was no doubt that there were irresponsible elements who were seeking to incite and escalate racial and religious distrust, animosity and hatred to engender the conditions to replicate another May 13 racial riots in Malaysia...