DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang today called upon the Malaysian cabinet to honour shuttler Lee Chong Wei as Malaysian sportsperson of the decade to mitigate the “deplorable attempt by BN to hijack the National Day celebrations”.
“Honouring Lee will go a long way to undo the divisive effects caused by the deplorable attempt to hijack... the celebrations,” he said in a statement today.
The Ipoh Timor MP criticised the “most insensitive decision” to impose BN’s ‘Janji Ditepati’ as the theme this year, accompanied by “a most hideous logo and cheap and vulgar theme song”.
Lim observed that although the logo has been abandoned, Information, Communications and Culture Minister Rais Yatim has refused to budge on the ‘Janji Ditepati’ theme and theme song, saying that it was a cabinet decision.
He contend that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak is doing himself and the country a great disservice in allowing the BN hijack of Merdeka.
“He can at least mitigate such divisive effects if the occasions are also used to honour Chong Wei as the Malaysian sportsperson of the decade,” reasoned Lim.
Lee, argued the veteran politican, has performed a feat unequalled by any Malaysian by winning two Olympic silver medals for the country, in Beijing at the 2008 Olympiad and again this year in London.
While acknowledging that Malaysians were disappointed by Lee’s failure to win gold last night, Lim said nobody is more disappointed than the shuttler himself, who put up a valiant and mighty effort.
Lim posited that Lee remains the undisputed hero for all Malaysians in the past ten years, whose crowning as the sportsperson of the decade “will be special and unique, drawing together all Malaysians as one united people regardless of race, religion or region.”
Last night, Lee took on arch-rival Lin Dan of China in the men’s badminton singles at the London Olympics in a nail biting three-set battle before succumbing to the Chinese juggernaut after a valiant effort.
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