PETALING JAYA: Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is contradicting himself with his claim that promoting Malaysia as a multiracial country is against the Federal Constitution, says constitutional lawyer Andrew Khoo.
"According to Khoo, Dr Mahathir had said in August 1996 when opening the Second World Fujian Convention and Malaysia-Fujian Investment and Trade Exhibition in Langkawi, that “Malaysians are justly proud their country is a genuinely multiracial nation."
Dr Mahathir was further reported to have said that “all the various races have not only enjoyed the fruit of stability but they have also benefitted from the country's development and prosperity resulting from it.”
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When contacted on Tuesday (July 4), Khoo said: "I am genuinely saddened to read media reports of what Dr Mahathir... said.
"If the reports are accurate, then he is contradicting himself."
On Monday (July 3), Dr Mahathir claimed that promoting a multi-ethnic country goes against the Federal Constitution.
Khoo also pointed out that in February 2019, in a Chinese New Year video distributed by the Prime Minister's Office, Dr Mahathir "reminded Malaysians not to take lightly the nurturing of the relationship among the multiracial, multi-religious and multi-cultural community, saying it is something not easy to preserve.”
He noted that Dr Mahathir even said in the video that Malaysians were fortunate to celebrate the various festivals in peace and harmony but that might not always be the case as there were "those who attempted to disrupt the harmony for a certain purpose".
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Khoo, who is the Bar Council constitutional law committee co-chair, said although the Federal Constitution places the Malays of the peninsula and the natives of Sabah and Sarawak in a special position, it also protects the other races.
"The Constitution under Article 153 places the Malays of Semenanjung and the natives of Sabah and Sarawak in a special position in relation to other races, in order to achieve a fair and equitable balance in education, employment and enterprise.
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"The other races are not to be ignored. Also, if one looks at the definition of ‘natives of Sabah and Sarawak' in the Federal Constitution, it is clear that they encompass many different ethnicities.
"The bumiputra of Sabah and Sarawak embrace different religions as well," he added.
