A veteran politician today described the support given by MCA and Gerakan to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's Islamic state declaration as a "brown nosing" exercise.
Lim Kean Siew, a lawyer by profession and political advisor to former MCA leader Lee San Choon, said there was no justification for both non-Muslim parties in the ruling coalition to support Umno's Islamic state.
"How can anyone say this is a non-issue unless they don't know the meaning of an Islamic state?" he said, apparently referring to MCA chief Dr Ling Liong Sik's argument that the ruling coalition's Islamic state was a matter of semantics.
Lim also urged opposition PAS, which has made the establishment of an Islamic state its platform - to accept that there are people of other religions in the Malaysia.
"PAS only preaches to the Muslims and not to the kafirs . They have not issued a statement on the rights of kafirs ," he lamented.
"There are fears that what is inherent in the Islamic state is that respect is only for one race and religion."
Monopoly plan
Lim, who joined MCA in the 1960s, also slammed the current MCA leadership and said a change in the ranks was necessary if it was a truly democratic party.
"Attempts at changing the leadership - whether right or not right - is democracy," he told malaysiakini .
Lim was founder and secretary-general of the Labour Party of Malaya. He was member of parliament for Datuk Keramat, Penang in 1959 and 1964. He later joined the MCA and was elected the island's state liaison committee chairman in the 1970s.
The former politician, who has written five books on history, politics and Buddhism, said the purchase of the two newspapers by MCA was an "attempt at monopoly".
In May, MCA's Huaren Holdings acquired Nanyang Press Holdings, publisher of Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press , in a controversial RM230 million deal. The disagreement over the purchase has widened the split within the Chinese-based party.
One Chinese newspaper
According to Lim, the Nanyang takeover was not a purely business deal as asserted by MCA leader Ling.
"I was partly responsible for MCA taking over The Star but the attempt at that time was to give the Chinese community a voice in the English newspaper. Then we wanted to widen that voice in a Chinese newspaper so we set up Thong Pao . The paper folded.
" Star is not capable of running a Chinese newspaper, so why allow it to take over Nanyang?" he said.
He added that rumours of rival Chinese daily Sin Chew Jit Poh taking over Nanyang group and a fourth daily, the Penang-based Kwong Wah Jit Poh , could eventually mean that Malaysia will soon have only one Chinese newspaper instead of four.
