GE 13 : DAP Tries (and Fails) to Appear Multi-Ethnic

Despite the DAP's best efforts ahead of GE13 to portray itself as multicultural, it remains a Chinese-dominated party where Malays and Indian members find little acceptance.
So while the party continues to criticise PAS' hudud agenda, the DAP is just as guilty of being single-minded when it comes to race and interlinked issues. In fact, the party often seems the Chinese mirror image of PAS.
From its shabby treatment of former vice-president Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim, to the fiasco over its disputed Central Executive Committee (CEC) election, the DAP has ridden roughshod over the rights of its non-Chinese members.
Tunku Aziz was the senior-most Malay leader of the DAP – joining in 2008 as vice-chairman – till he was forced to leave last year by the Lim dynasty for speaking his mind against Bersih 3.0.
Bereft of a senior Malay face, the DAP has since struggled to attract voters from the majority community.
Its credibility was further damaged by its internal election last December where DAP delegates were to elect 20 leaders into the party's top decision-making body, the CEC. After only Chinese members were 'elected' to the CEC, it was discovered that the vote count had been fudged. Despite this blot on its reputation, the DAP has so far refused to hold a fresh internal election in a transparent manner.
Again, while choosing candidates for GE13, the DAP leadership has gone to town claiming that it has fielded non-Chinese candidates.
But on closer scrutiny, it turns out that the DAP has fielded these non-Chinese candidates only in Malay strongholds where they stand no chance. Chinese candidates, meanwhile, have got the safe Chinese-majority constituencies, where they know they can win.
The party is therefore aware of where its core support lies, and the Lim dynasty hypocritically manipulates it, while claiming to everyone else that it is a multi-ethnic party.
The DAP's racist underpinnings were exposed in 2011 when two prominent DAP leaders in Perak were caught making racist comments against Indians.
First Nga Kor Ming, the DAP Perak secretary, called Perak Mentri Besar Dr. Zambry Abdul Kadir a "metallic black person". This was in September 2011 at a DAP ceramah, a video clip of which surfaced later. As if that wasn't enough, he followed it up by calling Dr. Zambry a 'haram jadah' or bastard.
And then in December 2011, his cousin Ngeh Koo Kam, the party's Perak chairman, tweeted that Indians are "Not as stupid as they think they are". The tweet was naturally removed from his twitter page later.
Both these racist politicians tried to backtrack after people reacted in outrage, but their clumsy efforts only compounded their misery.
Perhaps the more telling issue was DAP's response to the whole sordid affair.
The party command remained uncharacteristically silent. Not a word from Lim Kit Siang, Lim Guan Eng, or even Karpal Singh. The trio that never tires of raising their voices against injustice, were apparently tongue-tied when the perpetrators were from their own party.
As for Nga and Negh, they are now being fielded as DAP candidates in GE13.
So despite the token presence of Karpal as the party's national chairman, the DAP continues to push its Chinese-first policies, while trying to convince sceptical Malay and Indian voters that it is somehow multi-racial.
This awkward balancing act is bound to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. The racial divisions within the DAP are just too large to cover up.