Unhappy Malaysians can leave country: Home Minister Zahid

Unhappy Malaysians can leave country: Zahid

PETALING JAYA — Malaysia’s new Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (picture) has told Malaysians who are dissatisfied with its political system after the general election — which handed victory to the long-ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition — to migrate to other countries, as those who are loyal would accept the rule of law.

BY –6 HOURS 42 MIN AGO

PETALING JAYA — Malaysia’s new Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (picture) has told Malaysians who are dissatisfied with its political system after the general election — which handed victory to the long-ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition — to migrate to other countries, as those who are loyal would accept the rule of law.

Mr Zahid made the comments in an editorial for Utusan Malaysia, a newspaper controlled by the BN’s dominant party, United Malays National Organisation, a day after he was appointed Home Minister by Prime Minister Najib Razak, news website Malaysiakini reported yesterday.Lashing out at the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalition’s recent rallies to protest against the election results, which the PR alleged had been marred by widespread electoral fraud, Mr Zahid said the rallies were held to confuse what he called the PR’s young Chinese and politically blind supporters from the fact that it had failed to win the election.

“The opposition acted over-confident in support of the voters, and these supporters were manipulated by the various issues and false promises made in the opposition manifesto, which they themselves know cannot be implemented,” Mr Zahid said.

He pointed out that the PR had not disputed the results in the states it had won, including Penang, Selangor and Kelantan.

The PR has held rallies in Petaling Jaya, Penang, Perak and Johor. Crowds of supporters unhappy with the results of the polls donned black T-shirts with “050513” to mark the date of the May 5 elections, which saw the PR ending up with 44 fewer seats than the BN coalition even as it won more total votes. The BN won 133 seats in the 222-member Parliament but only 46.5 per cent of the popular vote, compared to the opposition’s 51 per cent.

“If it is true that the opposition obtained the majority vote, the measure it used has been manipulated … The method interpreted by the opposition is only adopted where countries directly elect their heads of state or political parties through elections,” Mr Zahid wrote, according to the Malaysiakini website.

He said Malaysia’s political system was not based on the “popular vote”, as with other Commonwealth countries which adopted the Westminster system of “first past the post” to decide elections. Under the first-past-the-post system, the candidate with the simple majority of votes would be the victor.

The PR has repeatedly alleged that the polls were marred by widespread electoral fraud and blamed the loss on gerrymandering and vote-rigging by their political foes.

“If this group (the opposition) wants to use the other system of single transferable votes as used in the republics, they should migrate to those countries to practise this kind of political belief,” he wrote.

Those who were loyal Malaysians would accept the country’s system of government as enshrined in the Federal Constitution, he added.