Zulkifli Noordin Candidacy Backfires on BN

24 April 2013
Think tank Political Studies for Change (KPRU)
 

Zulkifli Noordin Candidacy Backfires on BN

Think tank Political Studies for Change (KPRU) sees Zulkifli Noordin’s candicacy for the Parliamentary seat in Shah Alam as a support by Barisan Nasional (BN) and Umno towards extremism and contradictory to the ‘1Malaysia’ concept so widely campaigned by the President of BN Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

As it is well known, Zulkifli Noordin was once before being fired by Parti Keadilan Rakyat (KEADILAN) in 2010 as an elected representative under KEADILAN. It was during his tenure under KEADILAN, he began to display his racial attitude.

Before he started to show his racial attitute, in an interview with an online news portal in 2008, according to him, “I am a Member of Parliament (MB) serving the people, notwithstanding religion, race and background. My Service Center is handled by Malays, Chinese and Indians, even my most hardworking employee is an Indian.” His words will be contradicted by his own racial expressions in several video clips as well as his writings in his blog.

His extremist conviction was firstly seen in the same year in an incident involving him crashing a forum by the Bar Council on issues pertaining religious conversions. In that incident, he was reported to have accused that if the Bar Council was to continue with their anti-Islam view, they will have to face him as he will defend and fight for Islam. In the same year, Zulkifli Noordin also accused Islam of being attacked from the left, right, above, below, back and front, notwithstanding from the government& nbsp;and the opposition.

In 2009, his tendencies to rebel against KEADILAN can be vaguely seen. He criticized with KEADILAN MP’s of urging the House of Representatives be dissolved by noting that “the representatives of Pakatan Rakyat (PR) should not stoop low of BN and its’ representatives should be a better example for the new generation.”

Also in 2009, Zulkifli Noordin also voiced out that, “it is his personal jihad to defend the rights of Muslims untuk profess and practice Islam. He will continue doing so until his last breath...Muslims only want their lives back.”

In 2010, his tendencies to state racial statements and extreme began to shine with his words, “...some atheist are the ones causing the big problems that we face today. It is a sick mentality and attitude that we need to address.”

In the same year, before he was fired, Zulkifli Noordin took the opportunity to criticize Khalid Samad whom was at that time the Member of Parliament for Shah Alam as according to Khalid Samad, the Non-Islamic Religious Enactment (Control of Propagation Amongst Muslims) 1988 was outdated. And according to Zulkifli Noordin, Khalid Samad’s statement was “a insult to Islam and the Islamic institutions within this country, particularly in the state of Selangor”. Post his swipe at Khalid Samad, he decided to lodge a poli ce report against Khalid Samad for allegedly insulting Islam.

In a video clip from eight years ago which was only released in March 2013, Zulkifli Noordin took the opportunity to insult the Indians by questioning the sanctity of the Ganges River. According to him in that clip, “I have gone to the Ganges River. How can it be holy? There are chicken carcasses and twigs floating on the river.” In the same video, Zulkifli Noordin also took the opportunity to say the following on the purchases of broken Hindu deities, “Many Indians were rushing to buy elephant&n bsp;deities, even though one of it was had a broken trunk...I asked the vendor why would they buy the deity, the vendor replied, ‘I never thought to fix the broken trunk.”. He then continued in the same video by saying, “the Indians know it is dumb (referring to the act of fixing the broken trunk).

Also to be noted are his words in the same video, in which he dubbed the Indians and Chinese as illegal immigrants that was brought in by the British during the colonial period. According to him, they were only made citizens of this country in accordance to the Social Contract made between the Chinese, Indians and the Malays.

After the said video was released, surfaced another video which showed Zulkifli Noordin spewing the following words, “There were these Baghdad folks that believed, what keling carrying his Hindu holy book, I saw and I have proof. This keling brought the holy book and swore on it that he was believed.” Or in the original words, “Ada badigol Baghdad ni percaya, entah keling mana bawa kitab Hindu dia, ‘saya ada tengok, saya ada bukti’. Keling ni bawa kitab Hindu sumpah, dia percaya”.

Zulkifli Noordin was finally fired in 2010 as his actions no longer reflected the principles of a KEADILAN member and instead it mirrored as if he was an UMNO member. This and combined with the police report he made against Khalid Samad and his unwarranted actions at the Bar Council became grounds of him no longer having reasons to hide his extremist tendencies.

All of this does not yet include his blog entry titled, “DAP Still Chauvinistic, Racist and Extremist!” dated 17th December 2012 in which in that entry, he accused of the political party Democratic Action Party (DAP) as wanting Lim Kit Siang , Lim Guan Eng and Karpal Singh as the front-liners in the opposition as according to Zulkifli Noordin, this was to allow the hudud, qisas and ta’zir that you dreamed to be fought and stopped!”. Also in the same entry, Zulkifli Noordin also accused of Lim Kit Siang as being one of the masterminds behind the 13th May 1969 tragedy.

Hence, KPRU believes that Zulkifli Noordin’s candidacy will backfire on UMNO as Malaysians whom are technology wise have seen his habits in the internet and the video clips see him as an extremist which is unqualified to gain any votes from any race in this country.

He does not reflect the peace loving attitude of the people and his candidacy reflects Najib as a political leader that isolates the Indians and the Chinese as well as encourages the extremist behaviour in a country in which the people actually reject such behaviour. His candidacy will however be a positive nudge for the opposition and in turn bring a loss to the BN and not PAKATAN.