SEMENYIH: PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim last night went on the ground to strengthen the Pakatan Harapan (PH) campaign in efforts to retain the State Assembly Constituency of Semenyih.
His first programme was at the Semenyih Open House for the Chap Goh Mei Festival 2019 at the Kampung Baru Semenyih Basketball Court which was also attended by the PH’s candidate Muhammad Aiman Zainali.
It was followed by two by-election campaign ceramah at PH’s Main Operations Room and at Taman Sri Jenaris.
Anwar’s presence helped cool claims by the opposition that the PKR and DAP were not helping the PH candidate from Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) in the campaign for the by-election.
“I came to help with strong and solid support for the PH candidate. Hopefully, there won’t be any issues used by the opposition,” he told the crowd at the ceramah.
Earlier, Anwar reminded PH supporters not to take the by-election lightly.
“Don’t forget why all of you gave your support (to the PH) in the last general election. Because we don’t want the national wealth to be stolen again,” he said.
In his speech which was also inserted with Mandarin words, Anwar said the people must give their support to the national leadership to take Malaysia on the right path.
“Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is already 93 years old, does he want more money? Of course not, he wants to look after and preserve Malaysia,” he added.
Anwar also criticised the opposition which incited the people to stay away from the government by playing up the pledges made in the PH’s the 14th general Election (GE14) manifesto.
Anwar said it was not that the PH government did not remember the pledges made during GE14, but needed time to implement them.
“We remember the pledges, but the opposition raised them up, we have not even been one year (as the government), they ruled for 60 years, what did they do?” he said.
He also questioned the role of PAS which was seen as attacking him after the party forged cooperation with Umno.
“You are Muslims but can befriend those who steal, can lie, saying that I want to topple the prime minister,” he added.
In a ceramah at Taman Sri Jenaris, Anwar said Semenyih voters should see the Selangor government’s track record in developing the state.
“What has been achieved by the Selangor government has not done by any other state government under the Barisan Nasional,” he said.
In this regard, he hoped the voters would give Muhammad Aiman the mandate to enable the state government to implement various policies and programmes for residents in Semenyih.
The Semenyih by-election will see a four-cornered fight between PH’s Muhammad Aiman, BN’s Zakaria Hanafi, independent candidate Kuan Chee Heng and Parti Sosialis Malaysia’s Nik Abdul Aziz Afiq.
The by-election was called held following the death of incumbent, Bakhtiar Mohd Nor from Bersatu, who died of a heart attack on Jan 11. — Bernama
