Edward Wong S Plight Has Sparked Umno Youth Mca Political Bickering Fanning Racial Sentiment

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IF ugly scenes from the recent upside down Jalur Gemilang incident can be any indication, expect that whenever rightist UMNO Youth chief Datuk Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh enters the fray, the matter at hand is bound to have a racial fervour.
Having poked his nose in the plight of outstanding STPM achiever Edward Wong Yi Xian who missed out on pursuing his choice accounting course in University Malaya (UM), he had wanted MCA president Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong to apologise to the Higher Education Ministry for attributing the slip-up to “faulty system”.

But the five-term Ayer Hitam MP stood his ground, refused to budge from his stance that there is surely something not right with the 20-year-old Bukit Mertajam lad’s rejection for he possesses a perfect CGPA of 4.0 and a near-perfect 99.9% overall merit score for his STPM examination.
This is despite the Higher Education Ministry having clarified that admission into public universities were based on meritocracy with the student in question ranked 1,129 out of 1,127 eligible applicants for the accounting programme in UM with only 85 places offered.
“They are telling us there’re 85 places (for the accounting programme in UM under the UPUonline system) when I can show that it’s three digits,” Wee rebutted during a more than an hour-long live media conference yesterday (Sept 10).

“How can it be logical when the number of graduates outnumber the intake for a particular year? You want me to apologise? It’s not going to happen.”
The former Transport Minister had also questioned why Wong was deemed ineligible for the course under the UPUonline system but was able to enroll under the open system which requires students to pay up to 10 times more in tuition fees.
“Have our public universities reached a point where money is the priority? How can someone who was offered the course at RM83,800 first but later rejected under the UPUonline system?” he lamented.
Reacting to Wee’s justification, the firebrand UMNO Youth supremo took a jibe at the former for asking why had “Akmal Saleh ambushed me when I had never attacked him”.
“Relax, YB Wee Ka Siong. I didn’t attack you but was just speaking nicely. If I had wanted to attack you, that’s not my style,” he cheekily penned on his Facebook page.

“We say what is wrong is wrong, what is right is right. If you’ve made a factual mistake, just apologise, no need to go round and round.
“If you refuse to apologise, then go ahead and continue going round and round. The rakyat know how to judge who is right and who is wrong.”
Although the Merlimau state assemblyman has not made any racist contempt against Wee, the dangers lie in his vast fan base given his undisputed stature as a staunch ABATA (religion, race and nation) defender.
If his notion of patriotism had led his followers into branding those who had flown the Jalur Gemilang upside down as traitors when it could only be a honest mistake, Edward Wong’s plight is now seen from the lenses of the Chinese thinking that they are the “entitled lot”. 

- focus malaysia

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