Selangor Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari is right.
The state polls in July/August will be a “litmus test” for the federal government not only in Selangor but in the other five states which will also be holding their state polls — Penang, Negri Sembilan, Kedah, Kelantan, and Terengganu.
They in fact represent six steps to show that there is no “green wave” in Malaysia.
These six steps are:
- The Anwar unity government performing better in Penang in the state polls than in the 2018 state general election;
- The Anwar unity government retaining its state government in Selangor;
- The Anwar unity government retaining its state government in Negeri Sembilan;
- The Anwar unity government winning more than three seats in Kedah state polls;
- The Anwar unity government winning one or more state assembly seats in the Kelantan state polls; and
- The Anwar unity government winning one or more state assembly seats in the Terengganu state polls.
Perikatan Nasional (PN) leaders have publicly stated that PN can form the Selangor state government, have fifty-fifty chance of forming the Negeri Sembilan state government, that the Anwar unity government cannot win more than three state assembly seats in Kedah, and that PN will sweep all the state assembly seats in Kelantan and Terengganu.
The Anwar unity government election strategists should bear in mind what the defeated Pakatan Harapan candidate in Padang Serai by-election after the 15th General Election said as the cause of his defeat.
The Pakatan candidate, Mohamad Sofee Razak said PN leaders used racial and religious issues to poison the minds of Undi18 voters as they are innocent and believed the lies of PN leaders that there is a threat to the Malays and Islam in the country．
There must be an effective counter-strategy to these racial and religious lies and falsehoods in the state polls in the six states, as at stake is not only the survival of the Anwar unity government, but the future of Malaysia as to whether Malaysia can reset and return to the original nation-building principles the nation’s founding fathers (which include the first four UMNO Presidents) to again become a successful world-class nation and avoid the fate of a divided, failed, and kleptocratic state.
No race or religion in Malaysia is under threat.
The question is whether Malaysia can be great by being a “beacon of light in a difficult and distracted world” and show the world the way to democracy, good governance in the fight against corruption, as well as the achievement of inter-racial, inter-religious, inter-cultural, and inter-civilisational understanding, harmony, and peace.
We want Malaysians, regardless of race or religion, to be great on the world stage, and not to be a divided, failed, and kleptocratic state.
(Media statement by DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang in Penang on Sunday, 26 March 2023)