Salleh: 2013 opposition ‘victory’ an illusion
Sabah Umno leader rebuts Pakatan cry of winning the popular vote at last general election
(Free Malaysia Today) – Sabah Umno deputy chief Salleh Said Keruak, challenging Pakatan Rakyat’s claims of having majority public support, said today the opposition had won the support of only 30% of eligible voters.
“And this would mean that about 70% or 13 million eligible voters did not vote for the opposition (in the 2013 general election),” he said in a blog posting today.
Salleh described as “an illusion” frequent opposition claims that they represented the majority of Malaysians, when carrying out public demonstrations to demand the resignation of prime minister Najib Razak.
“The opposition loves organising ceramah, rallies and protest demonstration so that they can get crowds of people onto the streets and give an impression that the opposition has a large popular support,” he said. “The opposition gets 1,000 or 2,000 people onto the streets and they claim that this is proof the majority of Malaysians oppose the government and they then demand that the Prime Minister resigns.”
“The opposition is creating this illusion that it has majority support and that the majority of Malaysians want the Prime Minister to resign. A few thousand Malaysians, even the 10,000 Malaysians who rallied on 1st May 2015, do not represent 18.5 million eligible voters,” he said.
He used population and electoral figures to make his point.
Out of a population of 30 million, about 18.5 million Malaysians were of voting age, and about 13.5 million registered voters, and 5 million did not register to vote.
