By Sakmongkol AK47 | July 31, 2012
The Malaysian Insider
JULY 31 — Perak has 24 parliamentary seats. In 2008, BN won 13 of those seats. Most of them were won on the slimmest of margins. So the argument goes, the opposition also won on slim margins. The counter argument is, the victory by the opposition was won on the courage of convictions while the victory of BN was won as a result of the erosion of confidence. These are two different things. One won as a result of convictions is hard to slip back while the one won as a result of erosion of convictions is extremely difficult to sustain.
Will the people of Perak forget that during the reign of Zamri, he has given out more land than Nizar did when the latter was MB? Many landless people who were without land titles and who have worked the land got it during Nizar’s stint as MB. What wasn’t told was that more Malays got their titles too during Nizar’s time.
During Umno’s time the grant of land was the hijacked prerogative of Umno divisional heads, Umno reps and merciless pengerusi JKKK. During Zamri’s time, more land was given to companies and cronies rather than people.
The people of Perak have never forgiven the manner in which a government of their choice has been usurped by Umno though extra legal means. Whatever the court says, the general perception was that their government of choice was snatched away from them by dirty means.
The people of Perak are not oblivious to the rampant corruption of BN leaders. The laundry list of corruption is too long to be repeated here and indeed much has been revealed in the alternative media.
Will the Perak people be swayed with the oft-repeated argument that if PR takes over they will do the same things like what Umno/BN does?
If Umno assumes this, they must be thinking that Perak people are dullards and impervious to the injustices and corruption. Umno assumes others are like them who are motivated by predatory instincts. No one can do any worse than Umno does.
People can see that every Pakatan administration has scored better than all other BN administrations on almost every measure. Balancing the budget, achieving budget surpluses, increasing state revenues, carrying out people friendly programmes. They do while Umno talks and talks. Doing and talking BS are like sky and earth.
With an allowance of five per cent regained by Umno and BN, PR should still have seven per cent reserve to win all but two of the parliamentary seats in Perak. — sakmongkol.blogspot.com
* Sakmongkol AK47 is the nom de plume of Datuk Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz. He was Pulau Manis assemblyman (2004-2008).