The Pakatan Rakyat national leadership endorses the “Johor Leads” motto of Johore Pakatan Rakyat announced by the Johor PR leadership on Friday.

In fact, the PR Leadership Council at its meeting at PAS Hqrs in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday 22nd January 2014 decided to give full support to the Johor PR objective to fulfil the Johor Dream to make Johor the front-line state of PR in Peninsular Malaysia in the 14th General Elections in the march of PR towards Nusajaya and Putrajaya.

In line with Johor as one of the key front-line states in the 14GE, national PR leaders from PAS, PKR and DAP will be making frequent visits to Johor after the Chinese New Year.

Parliamentary Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, PAS President Datuk Seri Hadi Awang and PAS Deputy President, Mohamad Sabu will in fact be visiting Johor during the Chinese New Year period, culminating in an important joint national-state PR leadership and strategy conference in Johor on Feb. 24.

In the next 12 months, DAP national leadership led by DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng and national leaders including Tan Kok Wai, Teresa Kok, Loke Siew Fook, Tony Pua, M. Kulasegaran, Prof P. Ramasamy, Dr. Ariffin Omar, Zairil Khir Johari, Teng Chang Khim, Gobind Singh Deo and Vincent Wu would be given special assignments to criss-cross Johor to provide special assistance to the Johor DAP leadership led by the DAP MP for Kluang Liew Chin Tong to achieve the mission of PR capturing Nusajaya and Putrajaya in the 14th General Elections.

Personally, I hope to be able to visit all the 26 parliamentary and 52 state assembly seats in Johor in the next 12 months.

The Johor PR leadership announced yesterday that its first target, based on the 2013 General Elections results and present constituency redelineations, is to focus on the eight Barisan Nasional marginal parliamentary seats of Labis, Pasir Gudang, Segamat, Muar, Tebrau, Ledang, Sekijang and Pulai and the eight Barisan Nasional marginal state assembly seats of Paloh, Gambir, Makhota, Pemanis, Bukit Naning, Sungai Balang, Senggarang and Nusa Jaya.

Marginal Seats are defined as seats which are won by 55% or less votes.

I suggest that Johor Pakatan Rakyat embark on a three-point strategy under its “Johor Leads” motto to make Johor the front-line state in Peninsular Malaysia in the 14GE in the march to Nusajaya and Putrajaya, viz;

* Firstly, to consolidate and strengthen the PR’s existing five Parliamentary and 18 State Assembly seats;

* Secondly, to focus on the eight BN marginal parliamentary seats and eight BN marginal state assembly seats; and

*Thirdly, to set up special 14GE PR committees in the 13 parliamentary and 26 state assembly seats presently regarded as “safe” BN seats to make them not only unsafe, but winnable for PR.

The battle for Nusajaya and Putrajaya in the GE must be fought in every parliamentary and state assembly seat in Johor, not just for PR to field a candidate, but to fight to win the seat as well.

Recent events and developments marked by the worsening racial and religious polarisation in the country’s history with irresponsible and reckless elements trying to sow instability and chaos in order to create the conditions for another May 13 riot have underline the importance of an overarching and unifying national theme – the Malaysian Dream of all Malaysians regardless of race, religion or region to build a united, harmonious, democratic, progressive and prosperous Malaysia.

In pursuit of the Malaysian Dream, the Impian Sabah and Impian Sarawak movements have been initiated. The time has come for the Johor Dream movement as an important component of the Malaysian Dream campaign to be launched far and wide all over the Johor State, to spread the word that in the final analysis, all in Johor and Malaysia are one people – we are all Malaysians regardless of race, religion or region who have more in common with each other than with people from another country.

Whether we are Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, Ibans or Orang Asli in Malaysia, we are one Malaysian people, we swim or sink together, and we must go out of our way to respect and accept our ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural differences and diversities which are an asset and not a liability for transforming Malaysia into a competitive and great nation which could stand tall with any other nation in the world.

(Media Conference Statement after a Chinese New Year visit to Johor Jaya on Sunday, 26th January 2014 at 8 am)