Perak Pakatan ready for snap polls, says Ngeh
By Clara Chooi, The Malaysian Insider
AYER TAWAR, Nov 17 — Perak Pakatan Rakyat (PR) has finally recovered from its bruising fall from government last year, declaring itself ready to take on the Barisan Nasional (BN) should snap polls be called soon.
Unlike in other states, the PR pact in Perak is said to be the most cohesive of the lot, bound together by the year-long constitutional impasse that rocked the state following BN’s infamous power grab in February 2009.
In an exclusive interview with The Malaysian Insider, newly re-apppointed Perak DAP chairman Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham said that since the power grab, all state PR leaders and members have been working themselves to the bone to ensure another victory in the next general election.
“Our PR brothers are very close here in Perak, not just because of the crisis but because we have very good, sound, matured and very capable leaders.
“And yes we are [ready to face elections]. In fact, we have been on election-mode since the power grab. And now that the election can be called anytime, we are ready.
“I believe our general election machinery is still in tact,” he said, when met at his office here yesterday.
Ngeh admitted however that due to the series of events during the constitutional crisis in Perak after the power grab, the PR machinery now desperately needed to raise more funds and quickly.
“When our machinery is enriched, then we can move smoothly. We have spent a fair bit on our expenses, especially when paying costs to BN during the court cases,” he explained.
The Perak PR has been engaged in a mountain of legal suits against the BN since February last year, during its many attempts to declare BN’s rule in the state as unconstitutional.
Despite this however, Ngeh, who was formerly a senior state executive councillor in the Perak PR government, claimed that PR has been making inroads with the more rural population in the state, where it had lost greatly to BN during Elections 2008.
In the March 2008 political tsunami, the traditionally BN-helmed state of Perak fell to the hands of the opposition with a narrow three-seat margin.
DAP had swept up all 18 state seats it had contested, primarily in the urban Kinta Valley area, while PKR had managed to win in seven seats and PAS, in six.
BN had managed to score 28 seats, thanks to Umno’s popularity in the more rural Malay-dominated areas in the silver state. MCA only won in one state seat while MIC failed to secure any.
In the early hours of March 9, 2008, the three opposition parties of DAP, PAS and PKR came together in a hasty meeting and made an agreement within an hour that it would form a tripartite government in Perak.
Due to the defections of three PR assemblymen however, the government fell back to the BN in February 2009 and the state was plunged into turmoil for over a year.
Today, after exhausting all avenues to seek legal redress over the power grab, PR has now set its sights on recapturing Perak from BN in the coming general election, said to be held early next year.
This Saturday, the BN supreme council will meet to chart campaign plans for a possible snap polls widely speculated for the first half of 2011.
In Perak, PR’s greatest hurdle is the Malay vote, particularly in the semi-urban and rural areas contested by Umno in Elections 2008.
But Ngeh remains confident that coupled with the injustice of BN’spower grab and PR’s 10-month performance in Perak, PR’s influence with the Malay voters has now greatly improved.
“We believe and hope that we already now have at least 40 per cent of support from the Malays in the rural areas.
