Bukit Bendera UMNO chief Ahmad Ismail once again saw himself in the spotlight for the wrong reason. MCA vice-president Datuk Dr Fong Chan Onn is the latest personality who came forward to lambast Ahmad and called for him to be charged with sedition.
Ahmad had allegedly called the Chinese ’squatters’ and said that ‘as the Chinese were only immigrants it was impossible to achieve equal rights amongst races’ during a by-election ceramah in Permatang Pauh on Aug 25.
BN component partner MCA, apart from the entire Chinese community, didn’t think that was a nice thing to say. Which explains why the Chinese community and the Chinese press are abuzz with this controversy since Ahmad uttered the unspeakable.
Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi responded by saying that said he would tell Ahmad not to repeat such remarks and that he (Abdullah) thought Ahmad didn’t mean what he said.
This premier remark apparently didn’t go down well with component parties MCA and Gerakan. In fact, they had called for a stronger action against Ahmad.
In the wake of the ‘Merdeka celebration’ that had an overarching theme of unity, one wonders at this juncture what would the reaction of particularly other leaders in UMNO, and generally other political parties and leaders of other communities be in relation to this hot issue.
