DAP today said the entire Umno party was too blame for the attacks and fake news against Malaysian tycoon Robert Kuok. 

“We condemn not only Umno minister Nazri Abdul Aziz, but the entire party for their fake news, dishonesty and vitriolic attacks against Kuok. 

“MCA should not try to white-wash Umno’s racist and extremist attacks against Kuok by reducing this to an act of one person (Nazri) when it is an all-out assault by Umno as a party,” DAp secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said in a statement today. 

Nazri, an Umno supreme council member, had recently called Kuok a “pondan” (effeminate) and challenged him to give up his Malaysian citizenship after blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin accused the latter of funding DAP in attempts to rid the Barisan Nasional federal government and install a Chinese government. 

The tycoon denied the allegations, including Raja Petra’s claim he also funded The Malaysian Insight, and is reserving the right to sue the blogger. 

Short of apologising to the 94-year-old billionaire, Nazri said he welcomed the tycoon’s clarification. 

He then engaged in a war of words with MCA after youth chief Chong Sin Woon censored the tourism minister. 

Nazri said Kuok did not represent the Chinese in Malaysia, and neither did MCA that lost many seats in the last general election. 

“The party that won the most Chinese seats would be the voice of the Chinese. And that’s not MCA.

“Looking at the results of the 2013 general election, you can easily deduce the voice of the Chinese in Malaysia is DAP and the boss is ‘tokong’ (deity) Lim Guan Eng.

“That is why I work with him because he is the voice of the Chinese,” he was quoted as saying by Malaysiakini. 

It is well-known Lim the Penang chief minister, and Nazri, are on friendly terms. 

The exchanges between Nazri and MCA was said to have escalated into another war of words at Wednesday’s cabinet meeting. 

Lim said the way MCA reacted was as if the problem was with one minister. 

The DAP leader said other Umno leaders like deputy minister Tajuddin Abdul Rahman, ministers Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor and Azalina Othman Said had also made “vicious personal attacks that had no basis” against Kuok. 

He said even Prime Minister Najib Razak had “reprimanded” Kuok. 

He also cited how Tengku Putra Haron Aminurrashid Tengku Hamid Jumat had called MCA racist for defending Kuok. 

Considering it was Umno that had received donations from Kuok – as mentioned by the tycoon in his recently published memoirs – the BN lynchpin party was “most ungrateful”, Lim said. 

“Instead they have falsely attacked DAP for taking donations from Kuok. 

“Kuok admitted giving donations to Umno and MCA in his memoir released last December. The exact words as published at page 260 of his memoir reads – ‘I was often asked to give substantial donations to the ruling parties, Umno and MCA, after independence in 1957. I gave willingly, happily and freely.’

“Umno repaid Kuok not with gratitude but with so much bullying and hatred,” Lim said.

He said it was disappointing MCA had failed or feared standing up against Umno’s bullying of Kuok. 

“Why is MCA still wasting time collaborating with Umno and hanging on in BN when Umno has utter contempt for MCA?

“MCA should break ties with Umno and withdraw from BN in protest against Umno’s refusal to withdraw the fake news and apologise for their racist attacks.”

Lim said DAP lauded Najib’s brother, CIMB Bank chairman Nazir, who described Kuok as a patriot, an icon of Malaysian business and a first-class gentleman. 

“Clearly Nazir would make a better prime minister than his older brother,” Lim said. – March 2, 2018.