Pakatan states will not follow BN in early snap general elections

Malaysia Chronicle

Pakatan Rakyat leaders are unfazed by growing talk of a snap general election within the next 6 months, most likely after Chinese New Year 2011, saying that the four states they controlled would not be carrying out elections at the same time as the federal government.

“Pakatan states will stay put. For parliamentary seats, we have to follow if BN dissolves Parliament. But for the state seats, we won’t do so although BN is trying its best to force us. They want to re-interpret the federal constitution and make peninsular states abide by an Election Commission ruling that elections must be held together,” former Perak Mentri Besar Nizar Jamaluddin told Malaysia Chronicle.

Nizar’s team is already busy gearing up for polls so that they can wrest back the state government Prime Minister Najib Razak snatched from them in a February 2009 coup d’etat. Pundits say chances are high that Nizar will regain control of the Perak legislative assembly with a greater majority than before.

Both Karpal and Kit Siang see GE within 6 months

Other Pakatan leaders who have publicly forecast nationwide polls within the next six months include DAP chairman Karpal Singh and DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang.

“The Mentri Besar of the usurper BN Perak state government, Zambry Abdul Kadir, has called on BN component parties to be prepared for snap polls and BN component parties are openly calling on their members to be ready for early general elections next year. DAP and Pakatan Rakyat must be prepared for snap 13th general elections to be held in six months,” Kit Siang said in a statement.

Pakatan must also spring clean and get going

In the landmark March 2008 general election, a still-new Pakatan coalition did the unprecedented – which was to deny the BN of its two-thirds majority in Parliament. It also took control of 5 state governments, Kedah, Kelantan, Penang, Perak and Selangor but lost Perak after Najib’s widely-condemned power grab.

Najib was then the prime minister-designate but even after he officially assumed the PM’s post in April 2009, he has not been able to regain the trust of the non-Malay communities. In particular, he and his predecessor Mahathir Mohamad are disliked by the Chinese community for their unrelenting racist attacks against the minority groups.

Mahathir and Najib - series of political blunders

The latest bets in the coffee shops around the nation are whether the national GE will be held at the same time as the Sarawak state polls or will Sarawak go first in November 2010 and the rest of the country – excluding Kedah, Kelantan, Penang and Selangor – in February or March 2011.

“Frankly, I am inclined to believe that Najib will try to stay for as long as he can because whether he holds it sooner or later, he will still do badly. He is not popular at all – only his public relations are saying he is. Nonetheless, the signs of earlier rather than later are evident from the way Umno and BN are politicking,” PKR strategic director Tian Chua toldMalaysia Chronicle.

Whichever the date, pundits say Pakatan must work hard and get its house in order if it wants to increase its political power in the country. In particular, they point to Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim’s PKR party, which many believe has been infiltrated by high-level saboteurs and Trojan horses from the Umno-BN.

“This is the time for him to take tough measures or risk being killed from inside. This is the time when all the worms will come out from hiding and eat away at PKR. Apart from that Pakatan should at the very least retain all its states and re-take Perak. We expect it to make very significant inroads in Johor, Negri Sembilan and Sarawak,” a Pakatan watcher told Malaysia Chronicle.