[Pakatan TIPU Rakyat] Tunku Aziz SAHKAN Zairil BUKAN MELAYU

DAP's Zairil Not A Malay, Says Tunku Aziz

NST - THE new DAP central executive committee (CEC) member, who was elected following a technical glitch, cannot pass for a Malay as his biological parents are Chinese, a former DAP leader alleged yesterday.

Former vice-chairman Tunku Abdul Aziz Ibrahim said for that matter alone and to give the CEC the legitimacy it now lacked, another round of elections should be held.

"If they want legitimacy, then they need to have fresh elections," he said on Saturday night after "The days we were in Pakatan Rakyat" ceramah at the Tan Si Eng Chuang Tong Association Hall here.

Describing the DAP election system as flawed, Tunku Aziz said nobody actually believed a glitch had occurred.

"Zairil Abdullah is not a Malay. Both his (biological) parents are Chinese," he claimed, adding that he knew the late Tan Sri Mohd Khir Johari, who had adopted Zairil.

At the party's elections last month, Zairil was elected to the CEC because of the technical glitch DAP claimed had happened when Zairil secured 803 votes to secure the 20th spot.

Initially Zairil, the political secretary to secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, was in 39th spot with only 305 votes.

While Zairil was automatically "roped" into the CEC, Vincent Wu, who was in fifth spot with 1,202 votes, was dropped to 26th spot with 669 votes.

Wu was later re-appointed to the CEC as a co-opted member.

The glitch, reportedly because of a vote tabulation error due to the copy-and-paste method in Microsoft Excel, had raised the suspicion of many quarters, and DAP was criticized for sidelining Malay members.

The error, publicized only three weeks after it was first discovered internally, was seen as a move to make people view the DAP as the multiracial party it had been claiming to be. Before that, none of the eight Malay candidates who contested made it to the top 20 to qualify for the CEC.

Zairil and Dr Ariffin S.M. Omar were later appointed to the CEC as two of the 10 additional members.

Tunku Aziz said Lim, who is also Penang chief minister, was realistic, as he knew he needed the support of Malays and Indians.

"They (the opposition) will tell the people to give them another five years but this is not a football game. We cannot have the people of this multiracial country to be disunited.

"They oppose the 1Malaysia slogan and campaign instead for a Malaysian Malaysia but both concepts are similar," he said, cautioning the people that the opposition only played politics, objecting even against government policies that were good.

He also said the opposition kept telling the people to ubah (change) but added that there must be a basis for change.

"Those people do not care. They want change even if they have to do it through a revolution."

Tunku Aziz, who quit DAP last year over his objections against the Bersih 2.0 rally, also criticized Pakatan Rakyat's penchant for street demonstrations and said there were proper channels to protest.

"Everything is a political issue. Unhappy people are taking to the streets. It will be chaotic.

"If we keep doing this, it will become a pattern and we will become like Indonesia years ago."