Anwar to BN: You change them, we drop ours

The opposition leader says Pakatan Rakyat is willing to drop its alternative Merdeka theme if BN comes up with a more inclusive one.

PETALING JAYA: Pakatan Rakyat said today it will abandon its alternative National Day theme if the ruling coalition agrees to change its “Janji Ditepati (Promises Fulfilled) slogan to a more inclusive one.

“If it (the government’s new theme) is inclusive, we have no problem,” Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim told a press conference here.

“If say, for example, the government decides not to accept Pakatan’s slogan but it proposes one of its own that is inclusive… I am ready to ask my friends in Pakatan to accept it,” added the PKR de facto leader.

Yesterday, Pakatan announced its “Sebangsa, Senegara, Sejiwa” or “One Race, One Country, One Soul” theme and would consider promoting it in opposition-controlled states.

The slogan was picked after a committee of five sifted through 250 suggestions from the public in what could also be seen as an election campaign to highlight the opposition’s inclusive brand of governance.

Former national laureate A Samad Said said the suggestion, contributed by Khaimi Adam, was picked as it best reflected the all-embracing spirit of the independence celebration.

The campaign came after Pakatan politicians accused the Barisan Nasional government of hijacking National Day celebrations for its own political campaign with Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak now touring the country under the Jelajah Janji Ditepati (Promises Fulfilled Tour).

The event was organised by TV3, the main station of private broadcaster Sistem Televisyen Malaysia Bhd (STMB) that was linked to the ruling party Umno.

The tour was seen as part of Najib’s campaign to remind voters that his government had carried out its pledges since he took office in April 2009.

The country’s sixth prime minister was bidding for his own mandate at the polls as he succeeded Abdullah Ahmad Badawi a year after the 2008 national polls that saw BN lose the popular vote, its customary parliamentary supermajority and five states.