Fallacy to automatically equate Najib’s Hari Raya Open House crowd with support for his 1Malaysia sl
By Lim Kit Siang
The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the Cabinet Ministers’ Hari Raya Open House at Sri Perdana on the first day of the festivities on Sunday had a good crowd, but it is a fallacy to automatically equate Najib’s Hari Raya Open House crowd with support for his 1Malaysia slogan.
The mainstream media refer to a crowd of 50,000 to 60,000 for the Prime Minister’s Open House at Sri Perdana on Sunday.
If crowd numbers is a measure of public support for the incumbent Prime Minister’s policies and slogans, then how is one to interpret the crowd sizes of Hari Raya Open Houses of previous Prime Ministers, Tun Abdullah and Tun Mahathir?
A check with reports of past years will show the following crowd numbers cited in the mainstream media for Abdullah’s six Hari Raya Open Houses during his tenure as Prime Minister:
| 2003 | 70,000 | (NST 26.11.03) |
| 2004 | 200,000 | (NST/Malay Mail 16.11.04) |
| 2005 | 100,000 | (Malay Mail 5.11.05) |
| 2006 | 200,000 | (Berita Harian 26.10.06) |
| 2007 | 200,000 | (NST 15.10.07) |
| 2008 | 200,000 | (Harian Metro 3.10.08) |
With Najib’s first Hari Raya Open House crowd reported as 50,000 to 60,000 in the mainstream media, is this an indication of reduced support for Najib and his 1Malaysia slogan as compared to the public support given to his predecessor not only after Abdullah won the biggest-ever Barisan Nasional electoral mandate in the March 2004 general elections but also after he had suffered the worst Barisan Nasional electoral defeat in the political tsunami of March 8, 2008 general elections?
