KUALA LUMPUR: Barisan Nasional secretary-general Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz denied that he had called for vernacular school to be closed nationwide.
He said remarks in the matter made during his ceramah during the Semenyih by-election campaign made at Beranang on Saturday night was purposely taken out of context to confuse people and the voters in Semenyih.
The Padang Rengas Member of Parliament said a video on the matter which has since gone viral had been cut and edited to put him in bad light.
"I never said to closedown the vernacular schools.
"All I said was that no one race should question the special rights of any others, if we want to maintain the peace and harmony of living in a multiracial country.
"Everyone have their own rights, it's just like the Malays have certain special rights, such as special employment quota, reserve lands and economic exclusives which cannot be questioned.
“It's the same for the Indians and Chinese, they also have their own special rights which cannot be challenged," he said.
The former Tourism minister cited the example of the promise made to non-malay communities when it came to preserving their cultural identities.
This can only be done through the existing vernacular education system at Chinese and Tamil schools, he said.
"Being well aware of this, how could I make such a statements to do away with vernacular schools?, " he asked.
"If you listened to the entire speech then you would get a clearer picture of what I meant in my speech," he said.
Nazri said he was aware that his speech was being recorded and as such was careful with what he said.
"I knew I had to talk based on the facts and that is what I exactly did. I'm always conscious as not to make any sensitive, racial or racist remarks.”
He said being an experienced lawyer and politician he was quite careful on what he could say or not in public.
" In my 40 years of political involvement, I had never once intended to close down vernacular schools in the country."
"If I had such an intention, I would have worked towards achieving it while being in the ministerial post. I had 18 years to do it, if indeed that had been my intention."
"Besides, being a politician of Tun Mahathir Mohamed's leadership and his teachings, Malaysia cannot be a country which belongs to one race and must remain multicultural. It has been inculcated into me since I first joined politics," Nazri said at a press conference, here today.
He attributed the move to tarnish him on the matter was an act of desperation by some irresponsible quarters to divert the mind of voters from the by-election.
In his speech at the ceramah Nazri had also criticised the Pakatan Harapan government over the appointments of non-Malay/Bumiputera as chief justice, attorney-general (AG) and finance minister.
He said the remarks involving the AG not being a Bumiputra was made to reflect of the view of majority Malay grassroots who feared that justice would not be served fairly.
" I was merely conveying what the grassroots felt about the appointment of a non Muslim as the AG.
"This fear seemed to be reflected in the justice for 24- year old fireman Muhammad Adib Kassim's investigation," he said adding that this should not be considered seditious.
Nazri also confirmed that Police had called him this morning to have his statement recorded on the vernacular school issue and remarks on the AG, after a Police report was lodged.