Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 7): "Black propaganda" against DAP has succeeded in making Malays hate the largely Chinese opposition party, its secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said today.

His statement tallied with the findings of a November survey by think tank Darul Ehsan Institute (IDE) which found an increase in Malay anger towards DAP, which has been seen as an anti-Malay, anti-Islam and racist party.

Lim said the sentiment was real in rural areas where DAP had no seats and rural communities relied on mainstream media for news and information.

"That is the success of black propaganda... It is a question of not being able to reach out to explain to the people there. We are not active in states like Terengganu and Kelantan.

"If the election is called now, we will be in trouble but we have another two years to put in efforts to explain," he told reporters today.

Lim was asked to comment on IDE's survey, conducted from Nov 13 to Nov 15 last year with 1,716 Malay respondents throughout Selangor.

It found that almost two-thirds of respondents (72%) agreed that DAP was a racial party which only looked after the interests of the Chinese community. Only 12% disagreed, while 16% said they were unsure.

More than half (64%) agreed with the statement that "DAP was an anti-Malay and anti-Islam party". Some 18% disagreed while 19% were unsure.

Animosity intensified after the break-up of the Pakatan Rakyat coalition in June, when DAP parted ways with former ally PAS, the country’s second largest party of Malay Muslims.

IDE also said with Umno and PAS beginning to work together, the anti-DAP campaign would gain steam as both Malay parties used religion to attack it.

Lim said such sentiments were not a problem in areas where DAP had representation, citing an article on Penang by Tan Sri Zainuddin Maidin which appeared on his blog Zamkata on Sunday.

Zainuddin, a former information minister and Utusan Malaysia chief editor, recently visited Penang and wrote about the positive changes he had seen in George Town and the praises for the DAP-led state government he heard from a taxi driver because of welfare aid the administration gave annually to different groups of recipients.

Lim said his administration and party had been slammed with various unfounded allegations before, but that the people in DAP-represented areas were better informed.

Quoting the late US president Abraham Lincoln, Lim said, "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."

DAP has been actively recruiting more Malay members and plans to field some of them as candidates in elections. The party has also embarked on social development projects in states with large rural populations such as Sarawak, Sabah and Kelantan.

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