Vote BN for bankruptcy, warns Pakatan
Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders used dire forecasts of a gloomy future if there are no subsidy cuts to warn that voting for Barisan Nasional (BN) in the next general election would lead the country to bankruptcy.
Written by Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani, The Malaysian Insider
KOTA BARU, May 29 — Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders used dire forecasts of a gloomy future if there are no subsidy cuts to warn that voting for Barisan Nasional (BN) in the next general election would lead the country to bankruptcy.
A government minister this week had predicted Malaysia could be bankrupt by 2019 if it does not begin to cut subsidies for petrol, electricity, food and other staples, which cost RM74 billion last year. But the Najib administration is waiting for public feedback before deciding on actual cuts.
DAP leader Lim Kit Siang said it was not subsidies but BN’s corruption and abuse of power that has led the country to current financial crisis.
“I cannot imagine if DAP, PKR or PAS had made the announcement that country will be bankrupt by 2019. If we did, Umno would have labelled us as anti-nationalist and traitors. We probably would have been locked up in ISA and given free food.
“Remember Vision 2020? We were supposed to become a developed nation by 2020 but unfortunately one year before 2020, we are already bankrupt,” he told a crowd last night in Tanah Merah, a two-hour drive from the Kelantan state capital.
Lim was one of many PR leaders in the state speaking at ceramahs ahead of the PKR convention this weekend.
Thousands of people had slowly filled the football field in Tanah Merah to hear the PR leaders, with supporters of all ages coming with families and straw mats sitting in between the two goal posts across the field.
Surrounding the field were stalls bustling with people buying goods, from traditional medicine to perfume. There were also children zigzagging through the crowd selling peanuts and refreshments.
