KUALA LUMPUR, June 27- Barisan Nasional (BN) lawmakers yesterday reminded their opposition counterparts that they should stop their political chest-thumping, claiming they had the right to form the government after purportedly garnering 51 per cent of the popular votes in the recent 13th general election (GE13) .
Tan Sri Annuar Musa, BN-Ketereh (photo), who raised the issue, said the opposition pact had no right to make that claim as they were contesting under their respective party symbols.
“Does the Opposition Leader (Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim) agree that BN obtained 48 per cent of the popular votes under the name of one party, one symbol and one policy compared to the opposition pact which used three different symbols?
“Therefore, the opposition pact (PAS-PKR-DAP) has no right to claim that they won in terms of popular votes,” he said when interjecting Anwar’s speech during the debate on the royal address in the Dewan Rakyat, here, yesterday.
Anwar, who is also the Permatang Pauh MP, in his speech continued to claim that there was cheating in the GE13 process, besides stating that the opposition pact had the people’s support based on the popular votes they won.
Datuk Abd Aziz Sheikh Fadzir (BN-Kulim-Bandar Baharu) heated up the debate by asking the opposition to accept the reality; that the GE13 results showed the people chose to give the mandate to BN to continue as the ruling government.
The new face in Parliament also urged the opposition to together move forward, instead of continuously disputing the GE13 results and said that any objection could be made based on the related law through a court petition.
“Moreover, we all agree here on who had won the majority of the 222 parliamentary seats contested and they had the right to form the government, so just accept the fact that you’ve (opposition) lost,” he said.
Anwar then said that the opposition pact’s application to become one party had been sent to the Registrar of Societies about three years ago but there had no response to it.
However, this was rebutted by Datuk Seri Reezal Merican Naina Merican (BN-Kepala Batas), clarifying that what Annuar (Musa) had raised earlier was not on the registration application but on the issue of popular votes, often used by the opposition to create the impression that the people had rejected BN.
Reezal said while BN contested as one party, the opposition contested as a fragmented bloc, resulting in PKR and PAS vying for the same seats in some instances.
He said Umno alone won 88 of the 120 parliamentary seats it contested while the PAS-PKR-DAP opposition pact collectively won 89 seats.
The Dewan Rakyat sitting continues today.
– BERNAMA
