Back Bersih rally, Anwar tells voters
The opposition leader says it’s time for the ‘poor and oppressed’ to kick out BN and a clean election is needed to ensure this happens.
(Free Malaysia Today) – Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim has called on voters to take to the streets and support the planned mass protest for poll reforms on April 28.
The PKR de facto leader told a crowd of almost 700 in Setapak here last night that the electorate must show their “disgust” towards a government that thrived on cheating and back poll reform group Bersih’s effort to pile pressure on Putrajaya to clean up the election system.
Turning on his usual class war theme, Anwar said it was time for “the poor and oppressed” to kick Barisan Nasional out and the 13th general election was the time to do so.
A clean and fair election was key to achieving this, he added.
“Umno-Barisan Nasional can only win through cheating. That is why you all must descend on Dataran Merdeka on April 28 to demand for a fair and free election because if we have that, they stand no chance of surviving,” he said.
Bersih 2.0 announced last Wednesday that it would hold a nationwide “sit down” after they deemed Putrajaya’s election reform pledges a failure almost immediately after the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) issued its report on the matter a day before.
240,000 postal voters
Its leaders said the decision to hold the protest, which would be the third since 2007, was reached following the Najib administration’s alleged reluctance to ensure poll reforms would be in place before the national polls.
They also cited the unresolved discrepancies in the electoral roll as proof of Najib administration’s lack of political will to hold a clean and fair election.
“First they said they would abolish postal voting for the army and police. Good. But now they said some 240,000 Election Commission (EC) workers would vote through postal voting,” commented Anwar in his speech.
Bersih leaders again repeated their earlier call for all election commissioners to resign for not acting on allegations of fraud in the electoral roll, citing the failure of the EC to report deaths on the electoral rolls in Sabak Bernam, Sungai Besar, Hulu Selangor and Tanjong Karang in the last quarter of 2011.
It also pointed out other problems identified by the Malaysian Electoral Roll Analysis Project, such as double registration for 15,520 voters in Sabah and 8,585 in Sarawak, inconsistencies in gender, and addresses with more than 15 registered voters.
