M'sia Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng's son defends him for 'sleeping' in Parliament, M'sian netizens argue over incident

Some comments were really ugly.

Tanya Ong | November 13, 2018, 06:31 PM

Recently, a photograph of Malaysia's Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng in Parliament went viral where he was said to be sleeping during the Budget 2019 debate.

This is the photo which showed him with his eyes closed:

Photo via Marcus Lim's Facebook.

Son defends Lim in Facebook post

After the photo went viral, the finance minister has since clarified that he was not sleeping in Parliament, but merely "resting his eyes".

In a Facebook post on November 13, Lim's son, Marcus Lim, also came to the defence of his father by describing how Lim has been working tirelessly since he became Finance Minister:

"Ever since my dad is elected as the Finance Minister of Malaysia, he has been working extremely hard to figure how to settle the enormous debts our country is in.

...For the past 6 months, I have seen him working non-stop from 8am till 11pm, 7 days a week. I don’t really know if he has a straight 8 hours sleep since May this year. Sometimes he even skips lunch or dinner to attend meetings, or just to finish his pile of works in the office. During the recent pre-budget period, at times he only had less than 3 hours of sleep for the whole week. He worked with his team till late night and had to overnight in the office to prepare his first budget."

His father's schedule is so exhausting that the younger Lim, who tried to follow his father's daily schedule on one occasion, said he was "totally worn out at the end of the day".

He added that he is "very proud" of his father for working hard.

This is Marcus Lim's post:

Netizens argue over incident

The post drew a wide range of comments from netizens.

Some were not convinced by him:

Others felt that his father should not have been sleeping in Parliament even if the elder Lim was "working hard":

Quite a number responded with racist remarks:

"As if you're a Malaysian citizen... Don't even want to speak Malay. If you don't want to go back to China, then go back to England."

"Maybe he ate too much pork"

"If it happened to another minister, many Chinese people will criticise... If it happens to their own race, everything is fine.. Bootlickers."

In response, some netizens called the others out for their racism.

One Rachel Ee also tried to steer the discussion away from race, and highlighted how everyone could benefit from a little more empathy:

"Everyone bashing LGE for sleeping in parliament.. the guy probably fell asleep.. don't use racist points saying that the Chinese only support fellow Chinese. Then what is Mahathir? You all still support him... We're all humans... Before you all start criticising and get angry again, try being in his shoes. Try to fix 60 years worth of financial debt... If you can do it then you talk... If not, just sit down... Later if LGE's budget is truly successful, you will benefit from it too. Why are you guys always criticising? Relax lah bro."

 

Top photo via Marcus Lim's Facebook post.