Claims On Siamese Community Supporting Opposition A Pre-election Gimmick
ALOR SETAR, Feb 20 (Bernama) -- Claims that the Siamese community in Kedah has started to move towards supporting the Pakatan Harapan is a gimmick to reduce the people's support for the Barisan Nasional (BN).
Kedah Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Ahmad Bashah Md Hanipah said it was only a claim to attract attention simply to show the people that the party has received the support of the people.
"It's normal that every time there is a general election, there will be claims on people beginning to support them (opposition) ... to show that more people are supporting their party... it's just to reduce the support of the people towards BN, but one must remember that the people today are no longer ignorant as to be easily deceived," he said.
Ahmad Bashah, who is also the state BN chairman, said this to reporters after officiating the People's Volunteer Corps (RELA) Leadership programme here today.
Ahmad Bashah was commenting on the report on a news portal about the support of the Siamese community in the state beginning to lean towards the opposition coalition (https://www.themalaysianinsight.com/bahasa/s/38724/ and the link was shared on Facebook by Mukhriz Mahathir FC.
Meanwhile, Ahmad Bashah criticised the opposition for labelling the government's assistance as feeding the people with 'chicken feed' (dedak) as it was an insult to the people.
The people are not chicken to be fed with 'dedak' (as labelled by the opposition for government's assistance). It is insulting as the government's assistance is meant for the people's well-being, such as the recent RM1.3 billion allocation to Langkawi.
In the past, Tun (Dr) Mahathir Mohamad had also approved and made allocations but there was no mention of 'dedak' then, but now whenever the government is giving out assistance it will be labelled as 'dedak', when in truth, we were helping out the people, he said.
He also said that BN was not afraid of the opposition because the people could evaluate and see clearly the government's efforts to pursue the country's development.
--BERNAMA
