Malay PH leaders watched idly as we non-Malays were racially attacked, says Thomas

Pakatan Harapan (PH) leaders have not been spared by former attorney-general Tommy Thomas in his 550-page book packed with criticism of everyone from the prime minister to his former staff.

And one group he has openly blamed are the Malay leaders who were part of the former ruling coalition, accusing them of doing nothing while “racist” attacks were thrown at PH politicians, namely DAP, the party with whom Thomas associates himself as shown in his recently published memoir.

Thomas called out those in Bersatu, Amanah and PKR for failing to ward off such attacks, and suggested that the Malay community had been “brainwashed” into believing claims against him and DAP.

“Brainwashing of the majority race was tremendously successful,” Thomas wrote, naming himself, DAP chief Lim Guan Eng and other leaders from the party as victims.

“Yet the Malay leaders in PH remained silent,” he added in his book “My Story: Justice in the Wilderness”.

He named several Malay leaders from the then-PH coalition whom he said had been silent in the face of “repeated onslaughts from their people”: Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Muhyiddin Yassin and Redzuan Yusoff (Bersatu); Anwar Ibrahim, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and Mohamed Azmin Ali (PKR) as well as Mohamad Sabu and Khalid Samad (Amanah).

When contacted, Khalid, the Shah Alam MP, rejected Thomas’ claim.

He said on the contrary, Perikatan Nasional and Barisan Nasional had accused the Malays in the opposition of being too defensive of the non-Malays.

“So these are all political accusations, the people can judge based on our words and actions,” the former minister told MalaysiaNow.

Khalid also said it was strange that Thomas had only raised the issue now.

“He never spoke out on this issue when we were together,” he said.

“So he is talking out of his heart, based on his feelings, not based on facts.

“The claim that PH Malay leaders were silent is also not true. The fact is that we too were incessantly attacked as stooges of the non-Malays, particularly DAP,” he added.