by Koh Jun Lin
Malaysiakini
May 6, 2013
DAP’s newly-crowned Gelang Patah MP Lim Kit Siang has condemned BN head Najib Abdul Razak for attributing the coalition’s worst showing in a general election to a “Chinese tsunami”.
He said it was in fact a “Malaysian tsunami”, and that Pakatan Rakyat could not have achieved its results without the backing of Malaysians of other races.
“In many parts of the country, Pakatan won seats in areas that were previously considered as BN strongholds and took down many big BN guns in Malay-majority areas,” he told a press conference today.
To back his claims, Lim listed several Malay or bumiputera-majority seats that Pakatan had won, or retained with an increased majority.
These include Kuala Terengganu, Alor Setar, Lumut, Sepang, and Penampang.
“The fact that Pakatan managed to increase its share of parliamentary and state seats is commendable, given that hundreds of millions of ringgit were spent by BN on free dinners, goodies, and to print lies and falsehoods in the mainstream press in order to propagate a disgusting and morally reprehensible (form of) politics based on fear,” he said.
Lim reiterated his condemnation of MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek, for saying yesterday that the election results have left Malaysia with a “two-race system”.
On another issue, he said that DAP is backing PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim as the parliamentary opposition leader.
‘Anwar leads Pakatan Rakyat’
This is in spite of PKR winning only 30 seats in Parliament, compared to DAP’s 38 seats.
“This is in keeping with the commitment that if we have formed the federal government, we would ensure that Anwar would be the prime minister.
“So this is in keeping with the commitment that he leads the Pakatan Rakyat government, whether in-waiting or in Putrajaya,” he added.
Lim also questioned the legitimacy of the BN government since it won with less of the popular vote in the election.
Pakatan Rakyat parties garnered 50.1 percent of the popular vote yesterday, compared to BN’s 46.7. However, the latter won the election with 133 parliamentary seats compared to Pakatan Rakyat’s 89 seats due to the way the constituencies are delineated.
Since this is BN’s worst ever performance in a general election, Lim called upon former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad (above) to answer whether Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak should step down like his predecessor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Mahathir has previously said in May that Najib should step down if the coalition fares badly in the election, but did not name a suitable replacement at the time.