Thousands attend rally to hear Pakatan’s message of unity

PETALING JAYA : A huge crowd turned up to hear top leaders of the Pakatan Rakyat speak about their plans for the future now that they have unanimously rejected an offer from Prime Minister Najib Razak to form a unity government.

“Umno has failed to bring real unity to the people of Malaysia. Pakatan has decided to reinforce our commitment to each other and together bring about the collapse of the Umno-Barisan Nasional government,” PAS president Hadi Awang told the crowd at the Kelana Jaya Stadium in Selangor.

Despite being a weekday and recent police crackdowns on other Pakatan ceramahs including the DAP’s 43rd anniversary dinner, some 10,000 people turned up at the rally featuring Hadi, DAP’s Lim Kit Siang and PKR adviser Anwar Ibrahim.

They came to see and hear for themselves what the top trio had to say. And they were not disappointed.

Pressuring the Umno-BN into much needed reforms

All three leaders reaffirmed their loyalty to each other and promised to wrest the federal government together from the Umno-BN, repeating their landmark decision which will have far-reaching implications on how the country will be governed in the future.

Now back to the wall, Najib and his administration has had little choice but to emulate the Pakatan’s people-centric policies based on needs rather than ethnic background.

In fact their rejection of a unity government has sent Najib scrambling to the left, with the PM forced into announcing the cancellation of a long-standing 30 percent bumiputera quota on new listings and a more equitable distribution of scholarships based “purely on merit” to the non-Malays.

Said Anwar: “In the past Umno called me a Yahudi (Jewish) agent and a Cina (Chinese) agent. Yet it is Umno which has sold out on our rights and a good example is our language rights. Now, they are also trying to ‘liberalise’ the economy.

“Our criticism towards the New Eeconomic Policy is because of the abuse and the corruption and racial tones. BN does not dare admit it openly but will continue to speak different tunes to different people.

“For us, we have been consistent all the while, we have not been hypocritical. Pakatan Rakyat’s stand on the peoples’ rights is uncompromisable. We will defend the poor regardless of ethnicity. This is the core of our economic program.

Of unity and equality

DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang too drew thunderous applause when he slammed the Umno-BN for corruption and destroying the integrity of the judiciary, raising two of the hottest current issues – the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone financial disaster and the still-unresolved Perak political crisis.

“1Malaysia is already cracking as there is no unity in Perak, let alone the rest of the country” he said.

Hadi minced no words in urging Malaysians to come together and reject the racist policies of the Umno-BN. PAS has borne the brunt of negative publicity from the Umno-BN media, which has tried their best to pressure the party into a Malay power pact with Umno proposed by Najib earlier this month.

The PM and his supporters are now after PAS spiritual adviser Nik Aziz Nik Mat, launching a vicious smear campaign against the 78-year old religious scholar whom they blame for scuppering the talks. For Najib, that would have been a short-cut to staying in power as support for him even within his own Umno is weakening.

Said Hadi: “Islam encourages unity as all men are equal. But Umno has failed to unite even its own party.” (SK)