I wish to congratulate all Perak DAP leaders and members under the leadership of Sdr Ngeh Koo Ham for your hard work and unity in helping DAP achieve a great victory in the 2013 general elections by recording a 100% victory with an additional parliamentary seat of Kampar and helping PR increase its popular vote to 55%. On behalf of DAP, we humbly thank Perak voters for your increased support.
If the general elections were clean and fair as well as respect the democratic principle of “one-man,one-vote,one-value”, with 55% of the votes PR would have been the state government and Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaludin would be returned as the rightful Perak Menteri Besar. However BN cheated in the general elections by gerrymandering the constituency to favour BN.
Datuk Seri Najib tries to justify BN’s victory with his perverse badminton logic on why BN won despite losing the popular vote. Unlike in badminton where all sets have 21 points but in the Malaysian general elections, all sets have different points. BN seats have less points(less voters) to win whilst PR’s seats have more points(more voters) to win.
For instance in Kapar with 160,000 voters won by PR is like playing a set with 160 points to win, whilst in Putrajaya with only 17,000 voters, BN can win by only winning 17 points. Even if Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan plays against BN,they will not be allowed to win.
That is why PR can not win even with a majority 55% of the vote. Is that fair? The voters in Perak feel robbed of their rights and their dream of “Ubah” since the majority party did not win.
We must keep that dream of “Ubah” alive because it is the Malaysian dream of our young. Sdr Lim Kit Siang has called on our supporters to keep faith in our great Malaysian dream in the next general elections.
A Malaysian dream of a Malaysia for all Malaysians regardless of race, religion, class or region where democracy, good governance, clean leadership, economic prosperity and socio-economic justice could flourish to allow every Malaysian to live with dignity and an equal opportunity to achieve his or her fullest potential, in an environment that is clean, green, safe and healthy.
PR have shown in our 5 years in Penang, that even though without any experience, we can govern better than BN with 50 years of experience. We have shown that a clean government can perform better than a corrupt government. We have shown that a PR government can inspire confidence from investors and the business community with the highest investments in Penang history.
We have shown that we can wipe out poverty in 5 years that BN can not do in 50 years. We have shown we can spend more than RM100 million yearly on welfare assistance without going bankrupt. Most importantly we have shown that we can help and be fair to everyone Malays, Chinese, Indians that it is not who you but what you are that is important.
PR offers a future of hope because that future belongs to the people. BN’s future is only for their cronies as shown by these 8 examples:-
- Talking about 1Malaysia and yet preaching racial and religious hatred by selecting Perkasa leaders as BN candidates.
- Talking about having confidence in our civil service, yet employing outside consultants with higher pay than our Prime Minister,
- Talking about employing good lecturers to lift the quality of university education in Malaysia which has gone from bad to worse yet still appoint Professors who commit plagiarism,
- Talking about fighting corruption but Malaysia is the world champion of corruption and no one is punished for the RM52 billion bumi shares scandal nor the RM13 billion Port Klang Free Trade Zone scandal
- Spending 21% of GDP on education and yet the average 15-year-old Malaysian is now trailing by at least four years of school education behind those in Singapore, China, and Hong Kong, based on the 2013 International Student Assessment (PISA) results showing Malaysia ranking 52 out of 74 participating countries, behind Thailand ranked 50.
- Spending billions of ringgit of rakyat’s funds to build our own national car only to find it being sold at a lower price overseas.
- Spending billions of ringgit to sustain MAS only to find MAS practically bankrupt and selling air fares higher than a profitable self-financed Air Asia.
- Spending hundreds of millions of ringgit in public funds to rear cows that went to buying condominiums.
Datuk Seri Najib admires the late Nelson Mandela and even compares UMNO’s struggles as similar. This is most shocking when UMNO is all about perpetuating racial domination and discrimination to justify corruption, nepotism and incompetency. Let us remind the Prime Minister what Nelson Mandela said during his treason trial in 1964 where he was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
“I HAVE fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But, if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
If the Prime Minister is sincere in his admiration of Nelson Mandela, he should abandon racial domination and discrimination and fight for a democratic, free society that guarantees equal opportunities for all. As Nelson Mandela said,
“I hate race discrimination most intensely and in all its manifestations. I have fought it all during my life; I fight it now, and will do so until the end of my days.”
Before I end, let me share the views of one middle-class Malay lady, who is deeply concerned about the corruption, deteriorating standards in our education system, English and lack of equal opportunities for Malaysians without political connections for her children.
She asks us not to forget the middle-class – too rich to be helped but too poor to survive and prosper in this unequal and corrupt society. The Prime Minister appears to have abandoned the middle-class when he admitted that the 15% power hike by Tenaga Nasional Bhd will hit the middle-class most but there is nothing he can help.
Let me assure her that when PR wins power in Putrajaya, we will not forget the middle-class like her but create equal opportunities for her children to succeed and prosper. Again I would like to close with Nelson Mandela’s final words,
“We enter into a covenant that we shall build a society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity – a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.”
PR shall allow every Malaysian to live with dignity where the people does not fear the government but where the government fears the people.