'Uthayakumar will lose deposit if he battles in Kota Raja'

Though Pakatan Rakyat will be disadvantaged if Hindraf moves in to cause a three-cornered fight in the Kota Raja parliamentary constituency, Hindraf will ultimately lose its deposit, the incumbent MP Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud says.

She said the non-Indian Malaysian voters would not vote for Hindraf and the Indian Malaysian voters have realised this.

"There is no way Hindraf can win. Even if all Indians vote for Hindraf, it will still not win because the Malays will certainly not give their vote to Hindraf. They do not see Hindraf fighting for everybody.

"If they do that (vote for Hindraf), BN will win. If BN wins, they are back to ‘square one'," Siti Mariah (right) said, adding that Pakatan would also fight for Hindraf's cause, although not on a racial platform.

Siti Mariah said this when asked to comment on Hindraf's plans to field its de facto leader P Uthayakumar in the Kota Raja parliamentary seat, which Uthayakumar claims to be "very confident" of wresting away from Pakatan.

The doctor, who is also Dewan Muslimat PAS deputy chief, said: "I have informed Indians in my constituency and they said Hindraf will lose its deposit because they know that Hindraf cannot do it alone without the support of all the other races."

5,000-strong crowd at rally

Under the Elections (Conduct of Elections) Regulations 1981, a person standing as a candidate for a parliamentary seat will have to pay a deposit of RM10,000 while a person running for a state assembly seat would need to deposit RM5,000.

The deposit will be forfeited if the candidate fails to secure at least one-eighth of the popular vote.

Siti Mariah was asked about the Hindraf challenge last night, on the sidelines of a Pakatan Rakyat ceramah in Kampung Jalan Kebun, Klang, Selangor, where she was among the speakers.

The other speakers were PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim, Kapar MP S Manikavasagam, Ampang MP Zuraidah Kamaruddin, Sri Muda assemblyperson Shuhaimi Shafie and blogger Ariff Sabri, who is also known by his pseudonym ‘Sakmongkol AK47'.

Also addressing the 5,000-strong crowd night was the heavily pregnant Serdang MP Teo Nie Ching (right), who amused the crowd with an 18-line Malay poem poking fun at Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor, lamenting the death of Teoh Beng Hock, and urged the gathering to vote for Pakatan Rakyat.

The last four lines of the poem went:

Pada PRU yang akan datang nanti
Tunjuk Najib apa maksud demokrasi
Undilah calon PKR, PAS dan DAP
Kepada Umno-Barisan Nasional, nyanyilah lagu ‘Tiada Lagi'

(In the coming elections
Show Najib what is democracy
Vote for candidates from PKR, PAS and DAP
And to Umno-BN, sing the song ‘No more'.)

In her speech, Teo also said although she is expecting her firstborn within a month, she would still contest in the next general election, even if it was to be held during her confinement period.