I will not retire, says Anwar
‘But why should I retire? We won. Are Umno people stupid? We won and we will fight together with the people against this robbery, says Anwar at a Penang rally.
Athi Shankar, FMT
Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim will not retire from active politics any time soon, hinting that he would still be around come the next general election.
The Permatang Pauh MP defied calls for him to retire by claiming that Pakatan Rakyat had actually “won” the 13th general election, only to be robbed by electoral frauds.
He said Pakatan’s popular votes, which were more than Barisan Nasional’s, proved that majority Malaysians have voted for a change of federal government.
Strangely, he claimed that the popular choice of the people had become the opposition while minority choice had formed the government.
Hence, Anwar told a nightly rally here yesterday that he would not heed to quit calls made by his opponents.
Critics have called on Anwar to make good of his pre-election promise to retire and go into lecturing if BN won the polls and retained Putrajaya.
Many cyber commentators have called on Anwar to fulfill his promise for once this time. But Anwar is adamant he would not heed their call.
“Yes I said I would retire from politics if Pakatan loses. Some told me to retire as promised and to fight it out next time.
“But why should I retire? We won. Are Umno people stupid? We won and we will fight together with the people against this robbery.
“We can’t tolerate this rigging, robbery and fraud. We want answers now,” he thundered before a roaring and flag-waving mammoth crowd in Esplanade field.
A total 11,054,577 votes were recorded for federal contest in the just concluded polls on May 5. Pakatan garnered 50.9 or 5,623,984 popular votes against Barisan Nasional’s 47.4% or 5,237,699.
The three parties in Pakatan – Chinese-dominated DAP, Anwar’s PKR and Islamist PAS, collectively won 88 parliamentary seats against BN’s 133 seats.
Pakatan-friendly Malaysian Socialist Party (PSM) won a federal seat in Sungai Siput to make it 89 in the parliamentary opposition bench.
Soon after the polls, Pakatan led by Anwar has been organising rallies across the country to claim that their victory was robbed by electoral frauds and an incompetent Election Commission.
Pakatan leaders also claimed that they were rightful, legitimate winners due to higher popular votes, while hammering BN as a minority government.
