Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob has neither retracted nor apologised for his remark urging Malays to boycott Chinese traders. – The Malaysian Insider pic, February 8, 2015.A DAP lawmaker wants the Cabinet to consider sacking its member, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, as the latter shows no signs of retracting or apologising for his remark on Chinese traders.DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang today called on the Cabinet to revisit Ismail’s case at its next weekly meeting on February 11, adding that Ismail must be made to apologise for his statement.“(Ismail) should unconditionally retract and apologise for this baseless racist fulmination.“Or he should be sacked from the Cabinet, if not as a decision of the prime minister, then as a decision of the Cabinet by way of a Cabinet resolution," Lim said in a statement.Ismail touched off a firestorm after he urged Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses over the latter’s refusal to lower prices after the drop in oil prices.Ismail, who is agriculture and agro-based industries minister, said this in a Facebook post which he has since removed.However, he has neither apologised nor retracted the statement.But after a Cabinet meeting on February 4, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak attempted to play down Ismail’s statement, saying the latter was not targeting any specific race.However, Ismail, who is from Umno, has been criticised by leaders from MCA, Umno’s partner in Barisan Nasional.In his statement today, Lim criticised the Cabinet for defending their colleague.“All the other 34 ministers have done a great disservice to their ministerial offices and their own credibility and reputation in lining up behind Ismail to deny the undeniable (and) defend the indefensible," said Lim.“Ismail had, in fact, betrayed his oath of ministerial office, to serve all Malaysians regardless of race, religion or region.“In sanctioning, condoning and defending Ismail’s racist fulminations, all the other 34 ministers, regardless of their political party of origin, have also betrayed their oath of ministerial office."Lim also repeated his claim that Ismail’s racist rant would not have been tolerated under the administrations of the previous five prime ministers.“If a past minister had done what Ismail did under the first three PMs, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak and Tun Hussein Onn, he would have been sacked on the spot.Lim said even fourth prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed came out to chastise Ismail by saying that the issue of goods prices not coming down had nothing to do with race.“I do not think under Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s premiership, there would have been place for such a rank racist in the Cabinet.
“Why then is Najib the only one of six prime ministers to sanction, condone and defend Ismail’s racist fulminations when the other five prime ministers before him would never have done such a thing?“Is this because he is the weakest prime minister in the nation’s 58-year history?"Ismail said Malay consumers had a role in helping the government fight profiteers by using their collective power to lower the prices of goods. – February 8, 2015.
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