Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is merely a tool for DAP to split the Malay voters in the coming general election.

Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Dr Salleh Said Keruak said using Dr Mahathir to split the Malay voters was more important and was the new political philosophy of DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang.

"The fact that Kit Siang no longer regards Mahathir as the 'father of racism' or 'public enemy number one' shows that DAP's stand on Mahathir has changed from negative to positive.

"Kit Siang no longer wants to talk about Mahathir's past when he was prime minister or ask that Mahathir be brought to book to account for what he did, like how Kit Siang used to talk in the past," he said in his blog, sskeruak.blogspot.my on Thursday.

Salleh was referring to the latest episode of Insight Talk, where Dr Mahathir and Kit Siang conducted a joint interview with Jahabar Sadiq and the interview video was posted on www.themalaysianinsight.com, yesterday.

"Although they are both very evasive and refuse to call a spade a spade, the message is very clear. Kit Siang tries to deflect the fact that his main objective is to defeat UMNO by saying that if UMNO is defeated, it will be good for the Malays as well as UMNO.

"In other words, defeating UMNO would be doing UMNO and the Malays a favour," he said.

The minister said they then talked about the voters from the Malay heartland and how they needed to erode UMNO's influence in those areas if they wanted to defeat UMNO.

"For that to happen, the Malays need to be divided because a united Malay community would be to the advantage of UMNO. It is clear from what they say that Mahathir's job is to divide the Malays so that the DAP-led Pakatan (Pakatan Rakyat) can come to power," said Salleh.

-- BERNAMA