BUKIT MERTAJAM, April 8 – Permatang Pauh Umno is not afraid of facing opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who has announced that he would be defending his Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat in the upcoming 13th general election (13GE).
Division chief Datuk Abdul Jalil Abdul Majid said it would not fall for Anwar’s political tactic of earlier announcing that he would be contesting outside his stronghold this time as it was only aimed at distracting the BN election machinery. He said the Permatang Pauh Umno division had made early preparations in facing any candidate from the opposition, especially the incumbent MP, Anwar.
“We know Anwar would not stop at trying to deceive us with his tactics so that we would be lulled and not work hard. But he is wrong as Umno here had prepared early for the elections.
“We will go all out in fighting Anwar in his stronghold,” he said at a recreation programme for the constituency’s youths involved in cooperatives, at Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Permatang Pasir, here, today.
The programme with about 8,000 participants, was officially opened by the Cooperatives Commission of Malaysia executive chairman, Datuk Nik Ali Mat Yunus. Anwar, who is also PKR de facto leader, had on Friday night at a ceramah in Taman Pauh, Bukit Mertajam, announced that he would be defending his Permatang Pauh seat.
Abdul Jalil said the Permatang Pauh Barisan Nasional election machinery was all ready to “bombard” their opponents and would not give Anwar an easy passage to retain the seat. “Instead, we will wrest back the seat from him,” he added. Anwar won the seat by defeating Seberang Jaya assemblyman Datuk Arif Shah who contested the Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat in a by-election in 2008.
BERNAMA
