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Media Statement (2)       
by Lim Kit Siang  
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(Parliament, Thursday) : Among the three – Umno Deputy President and Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, Umno Selangor chief and Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohd Khir Toyo and the MIC President and Works Minister Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu – will anyone of them resign if Ijok becomes a “second Lunas” on Saturday with Barisan Nasional (BN) losing the seat despite  the worst electoral corruption and most undemocratic campaigning in the 50 year history of the nation? 

Electoral corruption and money politics in Ijok and the recent Machap by-elections have been  the most blatant and fragrant-ever in the nation’s electoral history – even worse than during the previous four Prime Ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein Onn and Tun Dr. Mahathir Moahamad.   

This is most ironic and tragic as these two by-elections should be even cleaner if not the cleanest in the nation’s 50-year history as they are held under a Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who had pledged to wipe out corruption and money politics as the top priority of his administration. 

The electoral corruption in Machap and Ijok are so blatant and flagrant, flooding the constituencies with tens of millions of ringgit development projects when they had been completely ignored in past decades, that many Malaysians regardless of race,  religion or territory are now cynically saying that “A good BN MP/SA is a dead MP/SA”.    

However, any BN MP/SA dying will not result in any by-election as the legal bar for by-elections during the two years before the next general election have come into force for all legislatures except for Kelantan (May 5), Kedah (May 20) and Parliament (May 17). 

This is undoubtedly one of the reasons which have prompted former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir to make his extraordinary public call to the voters of Ijok to vote wisely on Saturday. 

Although Mahathir did not outright call on the Ijok voters not to vote for the Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate, his message is very clear that the Ijok  voters should vote against the BN candidate. 

Mahathir told Malaysiakini that the Ijok by-election on Saturday is the right time for the voters to shatter the government’s propaganda that all is well. 

He said that unless the voters “send a signal” to the government that, “Look, if you don’t behave yourself, you may not get my vote at the next election,” then the government will say, “You see? The people are voting for us. We are doing well”.

He added that if the Ijok voters got swayed by the by-election goodies in the form of new development in the state constituency, they will only have themselves to blame if a “rotten” government is voted in.

Mahathir said: “If you vote (BN) because you get a lot of money or because you get a lot of projects, you may get a rotten government which uses money in order to buy your vote.”

On all the three critera  listed by Mahathir, (i) to shatter the government’s propaganda that all is well; (ii) to “send a signal” to the government that it would not get the votes of the voters in the next general election; and (iii) that goodies in the form of new development cannot be at the expense of a “rotten government”, the Ijok voters have only one option – to vote against the Barisan Nasional and ensure the election of the Parti Keadilan Rakyat candidate, Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim as the Ijok Assemblyman on Saturday.

(26/4/2007)