'BN lost in areas where voters aspired for democracy'

The May 5 general election was a "transitional general election", where an emerging group of people voted in the hope of a better democracy, Umno supreme council member Saifuddin Abdullah said.

The aspirations of these voters, who make up about half the electorate, include solving issues related to transparency, corruption, fairness and clean elections.

This is in contrast with the other half, Saifuddin (left) said, that prioritised development, such as new roads and schools, as their preferences.

"Where BN has won, the voters there generally give priority to developmental aspirations over democratic issues.

"Where BN lost, the voters there generally put their democratic aspirations over developmental ones," Saifuddin said at a forum organised by the clean and fair elections movement Bersih and Komas in Petaling Jaya last night.

The forum featured candidates who lost in the 13th general election.

In addition, he said the electorate has become ‘colour-blind' in choosing their favourite candidates, and the challenge for BN component parties if they are to survive the 14th general election, would be to seriously consider allowing direct membership to the BN.

'People uncomfortable with BN's race-based parties'

Saifuddin, who was defeated in his bid to retain the Temerlohparliamentary seat in Pahang, has been a long-time proponent of allowing people to be direct members of the BN, instead of going through its component parties.

He said there were people prepared to work with some of BN's policies, but they were uncomfortable with the coalition's race-based parties or policies.

"There is nothing wrong with being race-based as long as you don't become a chauvinist or racist, but these are the wishes of the people.

"The people have changed, and whether BN can move alongside and be on the same page with the people, we shall see in the 14th general election," Saifuddin said.

The others who addressed the audience of some 100 people werePetaling Jaya Utara BN candidate Chew Hoong Ling, Kuala SelangorPAS candidate Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, and Tambun PKR candidate Siti Aishah Shaikh Ismail (left).

Both Chew and Aishah said they experienced clean election campaigns, aside from issues beyond the control of candidates.

Aishah said her contest against her opponent, BN's Ahmad Husni Mohamad Hanadzlah, could well have been "the most mature political campaign" in the country. Ahmad Husnin was reappointed as finance minister (II) yesterday.

She said aside from being barred from campaigning in military and police quarters, while her opponent was able to do so, the campaigning was clean, without any smear campaign or character assassination.

Dzulkefly hit by smear campaign

In contrast, PAS central committee member Dzulkefly said he had been on the receiving end of a smear campaign from early on in the campaign period.

These include flyers declaring "Come and get to know the PAS parasite", and slander that he was the one who allowed the word ‘Allah' to be used in non-Muslim contexts.

Dzulkefly's pleas in the media for his opponent, Irmohizam Ibrahim, to condemn this went unheeded.

Some youths also come forward to him, in the last days of the campaign period, claiming they were offered bribes of between RM300 and RM1,000 to vote for the BN, he said.

Dzulkefly (right) said he intends to file an election petition, but conceded that it would difficult to challenge this in court with its high standard of proof, such as requiring the fingerprint of the bribe offerer to be recovered from the banknotes.

Nonetheless, he said, such misconduct would not go unchallenged, whether in court or outside, including the ongoing Blackout 505 rallies.

"We fear that if practices like this continue to go unchallenged, they will become part of the culture and practices of our election process," Dzulkefly added.