GE14 | Pakatan Harapan chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the big draw at a ceramah tonight in Parit, which was attended by as many as 3,000 from the Perak Tengah town.
To the majority Malay assembled crowd, Harapan leaders took to give Mahathir the hard sell as the coalition’s prime ministerial candidate should it win the 14th general election.
"BN is trying to threaten Malays by saying that Lim Kit Siang will be the prime minister if Harapan wins the election.
"But Harapan has announced that Mahathir will be the prime minister if it wins the election," Amanah president Mohamad Sabu said in his speech, to repeated chants of “Hidup Tun” (long live Tun) from the crowd.
PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and Perak Harapan chief Ahmad Faizal Azumu were also present at tonight’s event.
During his speech, Mohamad announced Amanah’s Tarmizi Mohd Jam as Harapan candidate for the Parit parliamentary seat. He is expected to face off against incumbent BN Belanjaassemblyperson Mohd Nizar Zakaria.
Parit is a heavily Malay, with Chinese, Indians and others making up just seven percent of the electorate.
In the 2013 general election, Parit Umno division chief Mohd Zaim Abu Hasan beat out Muhammad Ismi Mat Taib from PAS – then with opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat – by 4,497 votes.
Berita Harian had reported that Zaim was disappointed at being dropped in favour of Nizar, but stated that he would help with the latter's campaign nevertheless.
As for the two state seats under Parit, Bota and Belanja, Mohamad unveiled Parit Bersatu Youth chief Azrul Hakkim Azhar and Bersatu member Yahanis Yahya as the respective candidates.
Explaining kleptocracy
In his speech, Mahathir said that the large turnout was unexpected because of Parit's size.
"Parit is rural area, but from the crowd it seems like it has the population of a big city," he said.
It was not long before the former premier took aim at caretaker prime minister Najib Abdul Razak and the 1MDB scandal, asking if the crowd understood the term 'kleptocracy'.
"I didn't know what 'kleptocracy' was before either, and I had to open the dictionary to check.
"Only then I realised that whole world was calling the Malaysian government 'thieves', 'robbers', and 'pirates'.
"We don't want Malaysia to be ruled by a leader who steals money from the country," he said.
The crowd, for the most part, stayed quiet during Mahathir's long speech, but broke out in cheers when he accused Najib of pilfering from the nation's coffers and when he asked them to reject BN.
'Here for Dr M'
When interviewed, some attendees told Malaysiakini that they came just to see Mahathir, like 34-year-old Siti.
"I will vote for the first time in this general election because I wanted to see a change of government," she said.
A 79-year-old army veteran, who wanted to be known only as 'Tok Perak', also admitted the same.
Tok Perak, who served for over two decades, said that things are worse now under the caretaker Najib administration than they were during Mahathir's tenure as prime minister.
"When Mahathir served as prime minister, I was a soldier, and the ruling government at the time was better than it is now," he noted.
Tarmizi later told Malaysiakini that many Parit Umno members followed Mahathir out of the party and into Bersatu.
On this evidence, he believes, Mahathir could push Malays to vote for Harapan.
"Many Harapan members here requested us to invite Mahathir to kick-start Parit's election campaign.
"We are confident (of winning the Parit seat in GE14) because many Parit Umno members supported and followed Mahathir.
"Therefore we believe that having Mahathir here is the 'final weapon' for us to win Parit," the candidate added. - Mkini
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