BN Must End Politics by Race

Pakatan dares BN to end race formula
By Clara Chooi September 07, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 7 — Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders have challenged Datuk Seri Najib Razak to abolish Barisan Nasional’s (BN) race-based formula by turning the coalition into a multiracial party, saying this would resolve the quandary over maintaining Chinese representation in government.

DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua pointed out to The Malaysian Insider that it was BN’s race-based system that is now causing it to gripe over MCA’s decision to reject Cabinet posts if it were to fare worse in future general elections than it did in Election 2008.

If BN should turn into a multi-racial party, he said, MCA’s threat would not cause any headache to the party’s coalition partners, especially Umno.

“The squabble between Umno and MCA is simple ... the root cause to the dispute is the fact that the BN formula for one party to represent each race does not work for this country.

“The only way for BN to resolve this problem of marginalising a particular community in government is by transforming themselves from a race-based coalition to a multiracial one, banning all race-based parties,” he said when contacted here.

Pua was responding to a statement by senior Umno minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz carried by The Malaysian Insider yesterday, in which the latter said it would be unfair to “punish” the Chinese if they chose not to vote for BN Chinese-centric parties like MCA or Gerakan.

For the full article, read it on The Malaysian Insider here