5.6 million voters in Malaysia who supported and voted for Pakatan Rakyat know that BN would have lost this election to Pakatan Rakyat, if not for the 4Ms of-
-
Money politics to buy votes by the BN,
-
Manipulation of the electoral system by a biased Election Commission,
-
unfair Media coverage; and
-
abuse of government Machinery.
Nowhere else in the world would a coalition of parties which won 51% of the popular vote in a first-past-the-post system not only fail to enjoy a ‘seat bonus’ – that is win more than 51% of the parliament seats – but only manage to win 40% of seats.
We can observe BN’s desperation to cling on to power immediately after GE13. Despite calling for a national reconciliation, the actions of Prime Minister Najib and of his cabinet members have been anything but reconciliatory.
PM Najib blamed the ‘Chinese tsunami’ when everyone knows that is was the Malaysian Tsunami that caused the BN to lose the popular vote. After all, the Chinese are only 30% of the total voting population. Even if Pakatan had won 80% of the Chinese vote, this means that only 24% out of the 51% of our popular vote came from the Chinese. The other 27%, or the majority of Pakatan’s support, comes from non-Chinese voters.
The new Home Minister, Dr. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, asked those who did not like the electoral system and the election results to leave the country. Zahid is quickly making a name for himself, along with the new IGP Khalid Abu Bakar, in launching a crackdown to detain anti-BN activists and PR leaders. BN is mistaken to think that the majority of Malaysians(51%) will be cowed by BN. The majority will not allow the minority to suppress, repress and oppress the majority.
Pakatan’s challenge is to harness the desire of justice, freedom, democracy, integrity, equality and change expressed in the 13th general election by the 51% of voters by focusing on three areas.
One, the struggle for electoral reform. The need for an independent EC to conduct clean elections that respect the “one person, one vote, one value” principles has never been more urgent. We will not allow BN to steal the elections again.
Two, economic reform. We have seen how it has been business as usual for the BN despite the grand rhetoric of the Economic Transformation Program (ETP) and the New Economic Model (NEM). 1MDB is operating like a slush fund handled by cronies with no track record except close personal tiers with BN leaders. Newspaper reports have alleged that profits of 1MDB have been parked in the Cayman Islands while its debts are being parked in Malaysia.
More and more GLCs will be privatized to a few selected individuals. Lucrative toll road contracts will continue to be dished out to BN cronies. Pakatan will contest every single dodgy deal that is attempted by the BN, especially demanding full accountability for the GLCs and Petronas.
Thirdly, we must focus on making the Pakatan controlled states of Penang and Selangor even better models for competent, accountable and transparent government. We will continue to prove that a clean government can outperform a corrupt government. We will make a difference in the lives of ordinary Malaysians by providing a future that is clean, green, safe and healthy.
More importantly PR adopts a Malaysian approach by appealing to our hopes and instead of pandering to our fears, where we are inspired by our dreams of a better future together instead of despairing from BN’s racist agenda of dividing us eternally.
PR promises a Malaysian spring to free Malaysia from BN’s winter of fear, corruption, money politics and poverty.