THE Sungai Kandis by-election next Saturday will be a crucial test whether former prime minister Najib Razak has succeeded in making Islam synonymous with kleptocracy in Malaysia, veteran DAP leader Lim Kit Siang said, today.

“It will also be a crucial test as to whether Najib’s irresponsible, vicious and toxic politics of race, religion, fear, hate and lies, which failed to make the impact he had hoped in the general election to ensure the victory of Umno-BN, still have traction in Malaysian politics,” the Iskandar Puteri MP said of the first by-election since the May 9 general election that ousted the Barisan Nasional government led by Najib.

Until GE14, BN had not lost a general election since independence.

Lim said the by-election would test if voters in the overwhelming Malay constituency would fall for the Umno/PAS propaganda that the Malays and Islam were under threat with Pakatan Harapan in government.

“In the GE14 campaign, a major plank of the Najib’s strategy was to demonise DAP and Pakatan Harapan to incite fear and hatred based on fake news, lies and false information to sell the line that if Umno were defeated, Malays would perish as DAP, allegedly anti-Malay and anti-Islam, would dominate the Pakatan Harapan government with me as prime minister,” Lim said.

He said Umno lost its unchallenged position as the political party of Malays  in the general election because “there were sufficient Malay voters who were intelligent and sophisticated enough to see through the humbug of such propaganda and reject Najib’s vicious and toxic politics of race, religion, fear, hate and lies”.

“They do not want, in particular, to equate Malays and Islam with kleptocracy.”

However, Lim said, Najib’s brand of politics have returned in Umno’s Sungai Kandis by-election campaign.

“With the support of PAS and its president Abdul Hadi Awang, the Umno by-election campaign is based on the lie hat Malays and Islam are perilously under threat under the new Pakatan Harapan government after GE14.”

Lim again asked Umno’s remaining coalition partners, MCA and MIC in the BN, to declare their stand on the Umno-PAS campaign tactics.

“I am asking for the third time for the MCA and MIC national leaderships to declare whether they want the Umno candidate to win or lose in the Sungai Kandis by-election.

“Do MCA and MIC support the Umno-PAS by-election campaign theme that Malays and Islam are perilously under threat under the Pakatan Harapan government?”

The BN candidate for Sungai Kandis is Umno Supreme Council member Lokman Noor Adam, Najib’s former aide and stout defender.

The seat became vacant on July 2 after the death of PKR’s Shuhaimi Shafiei.

A 70% Malay seat, Sungai Kandis voters gave PKR a 12,500-vote margin over three other candidates from BN, PAS and Parti Rakyat Malaysia in GE14.

Polling for the Selangor state seat is on August 4. – July 28, 2018.