UPDATED WITH VIDEOS PETALING JAYA - Anwar Ibrahim vowed to fight on, launching a wear-black campaign to protest the widespread electoral fraud his Pakatan Rakyat coalition has accused Prime Minister Najib Razak of perpetrating in cahoots with the controversial Election Commission.
"This will be the start of a fierce movement to defend the rights of all Malaysians," Anwar told a packed press conference on Tuesday, two days after the Umno-BN claimed a victory of 133-seats in Malaysia's 222-seat federal Parliament.
The 64-year-old Anwar will kick off the PR fight-back to regain an electoral victory they insist was "stolen" from them at a mammoth rally planned for Wednesday at 8.30pm at the Kelana Jaya stadium in Selangor.
New focus?
Anwar, who has yet to accept the post of Opposition Leader, appears to be focusing on the 'Tolak Penipuan PRU13' movement. He is the de-facto head of the Pakatan coalition of PKR, PAS and DAP.
Despite coalition partners DAP and PAS urging him to re-assume the post of Opposition Leader, insiders believe the PKR adviser may decline as part of a Pakatan strategic revamp to give their battle against the Umno-BN new impetus.
Anwar certainly minced no words at the press conference. Indeed, he does not appear to have lost any of his sizzle despite failing to wrest the federal government in an election marked by controversy and fraud accusations.
According to Anwar, who is the PKR adviser, the Pakatan was now in "the process" of accumulating and putting together evidence and may take legal action against the EC and BN. There are at least 29 to 30-odd seats where there was clear cheating, he claims.
If resolved in favor of the PR or if a re-contest is ordered by the courts and duly won by the PR, this number would be large enough to overturn the electoral outcome and hand the federal government over to the Opposition. However, few Malaysians including Anwar expect the EC or the Umno-BN to respond in any transparent way over the fraud accusations.
"Thus far there has been no response whatsoever from Najib or the EC. Totally muted as always or they will dismiss it as irrelevant or the work of the Opposition," said Anwar, when asked if the BN and the EC had responded to the widespread calls for a public probe against the alleged electoral fraud.
"Yes, I would welcome the spirit of getting everybody together for peace and stability but please make sure we settle this primary fundamental issue issue now , that is, don't accept the results particularly when we have ample evidence to support the case of robbing, stealing the elections."
Two-faced politics
While Anwar welcomed Najib's call for national reconciliation, he slammed his arch rival for political hypocrisy, warning the Umno-BN not to further play up racial sentiments by blaming their weak results on a Chinese uprising.
"Utusan is following Najib's instructions. Najib talks about national reconciliation but on the other hand he also talks about Chinese tsunami. That's not right. We cannot play up racial sentiments. A lot Chinese supported PAS in Kelantan," said Anwar.
"This (using the race card) is accepted and approved by the Umno leaders and its media. It accepts a cheating culture, to make fools of the people by distorting the GE outcome, wearing black is now anti-Chinese. This is what i reject. To use racial sentiments to cover up their electoral fraud."
The Umno-controlled Utusan newspaper had this morning front-paged a headline titled "what more do you want, Chinese community".
Indeed, in the run-up to the May 5 election, the Umno-BN media had been unleashing election analyses and reports suggesting the PR's popularity was due to Chinese voters, but was not supported by the Malays - which is the predominant race in the country forming 55% of the 28 million population.
Najib's days are numbered
Political analysts have long accused Najib and Umno-BN of using racial politics to scare the Malays into rejecting the Opposition.
The May 5 election saw Umno-BN's weakest performance since it took over the government of the country from the British colonialists in 1957. In fact, many believe Najib would have lost the latest poll if not for the assistance of the EC, which refused to order recounts in dozens of close-contests.
Given that Najib's performance was even weaker than the 2008 result achieved by his predecessor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who led BN to a 140-seat victory, there is intensifying speculation he will be replaced by his deputy Muhyiddin Yassin at the Umno party election later this year.
Hence, critics say, the rush by the Najib camp to convince their own party members that the result was not due to Najib's leadership but to 'unreasonable' Chinese demands for greater political power.
"All over Malaysia, the racial walls are collapsing but Najib and Umno are re-erecting them. This is the only way they can cling to power," Johari Abdul, the PKR MP for Sungai Petani, told Malaysia Chronicle.
"Najib did even worse than Abdullah (former prime minister Abdullah Badawi) and he replaced Abdullah because of this (weak performance in the 2008 election). Najib could not get back two-thirds (majority of seats in Parliament) and we (Pakatan) actually did better than the last time despite the fraud. The young Turks (in Umno) are angry and so are the old Turks. He is caught in between. Najib is in quicksand, his days are numbered."
MORE TO COME
Malaysia Chronicle
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