Malaysiakini Yeow Boon Kiat | Feb 14, 08 5:36pm
DAP strongman Lim Kit Siang has urged voters to lodge a police report if they find any candidate utilising government resources in their election campaign.
“Whenever you see the prime minister, deputy prime minister, ministers or deputy ministers arrive in government vehicles or using government funds to campaign, lodge a police report immediately and call the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) to investigate”, he told a press conference in Petaling Jaya today.
dap islamic state roundtable 100807 lim kit siang”This is a blatant abuse of power and money politics,” he declared, adding that all Malaysians should help to ensure that ministers are behaving as caretaker ministers so that the elections will be clean, just and fair.
Lim described the recent ‘ang pows’ and ‘goodies’ dished out by the BN in recent weeks as electoral abuses and the people should consider them as such.
He also cited the incident in which MCA president Ong Ka Ting made use of a Fire and Rescue Services Department helicopter to campaign in Johor in 2004 as an example of the abuse of government resources.
A right step by EC
Lim called on the government to ground all its vehicles during the campaign period.
However, the veteran oppositionist surprisingly praised the Election Commission (EC) for allowing a longer 13-day campaign period (Feb 24 to March 7) in the coming polls.
“At least, this is a small step in the right direction towards a more fairer and cleaner election as candidates from all parties have more time to prepare”, he said.
Lim also called on EC chairperson Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman to go an extra mile to prove Dr Mahathir Mohamad wrong by making sure that the 12th General Election will be cleaner than any elections during Mahathir’s rule.
The former premier had predicted that the coming polls will be the dirtiest ever, a prediction which Lim has also been reiterating of late.
Asked on his outlook on DAP’s performance in the coming elections, Lim said the party would perform better.
“We should do better than 2004 but the macro picture should be whether the opposition could win 75 seats collectively to deny the BN a two-thirds majority”.