Mahathir’s speech is a disgraceful first in the nation’s 42-year history where the Malaysian Prime Minister had to go to a foreign land to appeal to foreigners to intervene in our domestic politics and support the ruling coalition against the Opposition.
I find Mahathir’s action most unbelievable and incomprehensible, especially as he and the other Barisan Nasional leaders have been going round the country in the past year falsely accusing Opposition parties and leaders of disloyalty for being stooges of foreign powers and countries.
Going by Mahathir’s past denunciations, the Prime Minister has now committed this very act of disloyalty to Malaysia in going to New York to plead for foreign support for the Barisan Nasional government!
The first three Prime Ministers of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak and Tun Hussein Onn never had to go to foreign lands to appeal for foreign support for the ruling parties in the domestic political battle and there is no reason why Mahathir should set such an unhealthy and undesirable precedent.
The political future of Malaysia must be decided by Malaysians themselves, and we do not want any foreigners whether it be the US Council on Foreign Relations or any other body in any other country to interfere with the sovereign right of Malaysians to determine our political destiny, whether it be to break the political hegemony of the Barisan Nasional by denying and ending its unbroken two-thirds parliamentary majority in the next general election or to usher in a new political scenario where there is full government respect for justice, freedom, democracy and good governance.
If Opposition leaders had spoken at the Council of Foreign Relations using the very same language as Mahathir but urging support of foreigners for the Opposition against the Barisan Nasional, they would be accused of disloyalty and even being traitors of the country. Why should a different standard apply for Barisan Nasional leaders or Mahathir?
(30/9/99)