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“The Perak people should carve the faces of the four assemblymen on their limestone hills just like Mount Rushmore, so that future generations will remember...,” one reader commented on news portal The Malaysian Insider. THE STRAITS TIMES
It may have recaptured Perak, but Barisan Nasional now faces the bigger battle for the hearts of Malaysians, especially those who scoff at its backdoor re-entry to power. But the opposition Pakatan Rakyat has not been spared criticism either. It has been knocked for losing control of its assemblymen. On blogs, message boards and even networking site Facebook, netizens have unleashed their anger and disappointment, saying their trust in politicians has been shattered. The volume of unhappy comments, along with the spike in Internet traffic driven by those wanting to read real-time updates of the twists and turns in the Perak saga, caused online news portals, including Malaysiakini, to redirect users to stripped-down versions of their websites, which load more quickly. Most of the vitriol has been directed at the four politicians who jumped ship on Wednesday: former Parti Keadilan Rakyat assemblymen Osman Jailu and Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi, former DAP assemblyman Hee Yit Fong, and assemblyman Nasarudin Hashim, who defected to PKR last week before making an abrupt U-turn back to Umno. They have been labelled traitors, having either flipped-flopped or reneged on earlier claims that they were not defecting. “The Perak people should carve the faces of the four assemblymen on their limestone hills just like Mount Rushmore, so that future generations will remember...,” one reader commented on news portal The Malaysian Insider. “Any rep leaving the party after having won is no better than a dishonest salesman who hoodwinks customers into buying products (of which the) quality does not measure up to what was claimed,” wrote another reader. Many, like business development manager Nicole Fong, 34, who grew up in Perak and has family there, disapprove of a government formed through defections. “Calling for snap polls is the fairer way forward. BN can't just take over the state like this — they don't have the people's consensus,” she told The Straits Times. On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced that BN has recaptured Perak — which fell to the Opposition in last year's general election — thanks to the four lawmakers who switched sides. With the defections, BN and PR hold 28 seats each. But with the three pro-BN independent assemblymen, BN can now claim control of the state assembly. Political observers have, however, warned of a possible backlash from citizens if BN chooses to reclaim power this way — a point that was also emphasised by former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Yesterday, veteran Umno leader Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah joined the chorus of naysayers, cautioning that taking control of Perak without getting the people's mandate would spell disaster for BN in the next general election. Such actions would “cement the enmity of the very people we should be trying to win back”, he said. But Najib pre-empted such criticism. “We didn't start this,” he said. “Someone wanted to form the government on Sept 16,” he added, referring to opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's ambitious plan to engineer a massive defection of BN MPs to the opposition last year. But political analyst James Chin said voters are always going to be more sympathetic towards the opposition. “The general feeling is that the electoral system is skewed towards the ruling coalition. That's probably why they are less worked up when the opposition woos defectors,” he told The Straits Times. Nevertheless, there are also fingers pointed at PR for its part in the debacle. “(Pakatan Rakyat), please vet all your candidates before letting them stand for snap polls,” wrote Perak resident Prema Subramaniam on Malaysiakini's website. Those who opted for the opposition last year have resigned themselves to a Catch-22 situation. After voting for BN for half a century, they say, voting for Pakatan has now backfired as well. — MI
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