Monday, May 6, 2013

‘Selangor victory a rebuke to Najib’

G Vinod

PETALING JAYA: The DAP today described Pakatan Rakyat’s huge win in Selangor as a slap for Selangor Barisan Nasional (BN) chief Najib Tun Razak.

“It shows that Selangor voters of all races and religion detest BN’s divisive politics using race, religion and royalty.

“And it also a recognition of the people for Pakatan’s achievements and they realise that voting for us is a step forward for them and their children,” said Selangor DAP deputy chief Tony Pua.

Pakatan Rakyat gained two third majority in the state assembly yesterday, by garnering 44 state seats compared to BN’s 12 seats.

Pakatan gained eight additional state seats compared to the results in the 2008 general election.
Pua said that not only the Chinese supported Pakatan’s bid to retain Selangor, but also the Malays and Indians.

“PAS had managed to capture many semi rural seats which has large Malay voters, namely Sabak, Morib, Paya Jaras, Dusun Tua, Tanjung Sepat and Taman Templar.

“We managed to achieve this despite Umno’s relentless attacks against us by playing the race, religion and royalty card in the Malay heartland,” he said.

Pua added that there was also a surge of Malay and Indian support in state seats such as Kuala Kubu Baru and Sungai Pelek.

“We managed to garner 1,702 votes from Kuala Kubu Baru from both the community, which is higher than the 448 votes we received in 2008.

“Similarly, we received 1,972 votes from votes both communities in Sungai Pelek, which is higher that the 1,572 we received in 2008,” he said.

Overall, Pua added, Pakatan gained an additonal four percent in popular votes in Selangor as compared to 2008, which confirmed that it was no one hit wonder.

“This cements Pakatan as a highly credible political coalition,” he said.

However, Pua conceded that Pakatan could have made more gains if it was not for the mess in Kota Damansara and Semenyih, which he described as “self-inflicted injury.”

“If you tally the votes received between Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) and Pakatan parties, we could have won those seats as well,” he said.

In Kota Damansara, BN candidate Halimaton Saadiah Bohan won the seat by garnering 16,387 votes.

PSM chairman Nasir Hashim garnered 14,680 votes while PAS’ Ridzuan Ismail garnered 7,312 votes.

As for Semenyih, BN candidate Johan Abdul Aziz won the seat by garnering 17,616 votes while PSM secretary general S Arutchelvan obtained 5,568 votes. PKR candidate Hamidi Hasan garnered 13,471 votes.

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