{"id":256,"date":"2011-01-05T11:44:40","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T03:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/daprocket.com\/en\/?p=256"},"modified":"2011-10-18T14:52:33","modified_gmt":"2011-10-18T06:52:33","slug":"2nd-pakatan-rakyat-national-convention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/2nd-pakatan-rakyat-national-convention\/","title":{"rendered":"2nd Pakatan Rakyat National Convention"},"content":{"rendered":"

Change Now, Save Malaysia!<\/strong><\/p>\n

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[THE ROCKET] As the year drew to an end, Pakatan Rakyat held its second national-level gathering at the sprawling Dewan Milenium in Kepala Batas, Penang on 19 December 2010. Over 2000 people thronged the convention, which sought to build from the groundwork laid during the first convention in Shah Alam in 2009.<\/p>\n

Leaders from the three component parties were present as well as members representing each of the state branches, NGO representatives and both foreign and local guests. Amidst the speeches and debate sessions, there were performances such as silat, silambam and lion dances and booths displaying the various achievements of each of the PR-led states.<\/p>\n

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng kicked off the speeches by cautioning the crowd that the BN, chiefly Umno, would try their best to weaken the ties among PR\u00a0 members. \u201cUmno will always try to play up the relationship between PAS and DAP. They will use the 3Rs \u2014 Race, religion and \u2018Raja\u2019 (the Rulers) to try and drive a wedge between us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Declaring that DAP and PAS were not manipulating each other,\u00a0 he added, \u201cWe are only willing to be \u2018manipulated\u2019 by the people.\u201d to huge applause from the crowd. He also warned Umno against hijacking the federal constitution to further split and divide Malaysians.<\/p>\n

Lim said that Umno often cites Article 153 of the federal constitution on the special position of the Malays as justification for their racist approach. \u201cHowever, Umno invariably fails to mention that Article 153 also states that the legitimate interests of other communities must also be protected.\u201d<\/p>\n

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PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail then\u00a0 brought to light Umno\u2019s old trick of propagating the notion that the DAP would rob the Malays of their rights, highlighting the character assassinations by the Alliance on the earliest Oppositions leaders such Onn Jaafar, Dr. Burhanuddin Helmi and Ahmad Boestamam.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistory has shown us that a strong Opposition would not be allowed to function in Malaysia as long as Umno-BN are in power, despite our political system of\u00a0 parliamentary democracy. \u201cAnd it is happening again,\u201d she said, referring to the Perak crisis and recent suspension of four Pakatan members of Parliament. \u201cTherefore we have to strengthen our resolve. Any announcements or statements have to be made in agreement with the three parties, to show commitment and unity.\u201d<\/p>\n

PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang then touched on the importance of equality. \u201cIn implementing the policies within Pakatan states, it is crucial that we be careful and understand the complexities of each party, taking care of the sensitivities of society… and without blocking any religion or race in this country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe failure to understand this fundamental fact will open up room to Umno and BN to spread their propaganda through the mass media which is controlled by them. This would put us in a \u2018defensive\u2019\u00a0 mode which will only confuse Malaysians,\u201d warned Hadi.<\/p>\n

The PAS chief then said PR needed to set its own agenda with the people and avoid being stuck in a \u201cresponsive\u201d mode. \u201cIt is time we use our own media to reach the people. This must be collectively engineered by the PR states, party workers and all media practitioners who are with us,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

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\"Zairil<\/a>

Zairil Khir Johari<\/p><\/div>\n

Representatives from each component party also spoke on the various segments of PR\u2019s Common Policy Framework.\u00a0 DAP member Zairil Khir Johari shared how people often seem perplexed\u00a0 upon meeting him due to his mixed parentage and questioned the need to pick just one identity. \u201cChallenges of poverty, corruption, abuse of power and so on are colour-blind, yet the solutions offered by BN are racebased,\u201d he continued, citing the clear failure of the NEP despite BN\u2019s insistence that it helped the Malays.<\/p>\n

DAP leaders from East Malaysia lamented the continued disparity between allocations and basic rights given to their states as compared to the Peninsular. Sarawak DAP treasurer Violet Yong condemned Sarawak BN\u2019s continued plunder of the state\u2019s natural resources and urged PR to abstain from infighting over seat allocations or other matters, as \u201cwe owe it to not only to ourselves but to our future generations to put\u00a0 Malaysia in a place to be shared by all races.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sabah DAP\u2019s publicity secretary Edwin Bosi highlighted the BN\u2019s disregard of the state\u2019s 20-point agreement from 1963 when it agreed to join the Malaysian Federation. He also condemned BN\u2019s willingness to accept 1.5 million foreigners as legal citizens while the state\u2019s own natives were being neglected.<\/p>\n

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As even more people cramped into the hall for the closing speeches by the top PR leadership, DAP National Chairman Karpal Singh did not mince his words in warning PR against fielding weak candidates. He also touched on the controversial issue of the Islamic state.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to advise PAS to defend the non-Malays\u2019 right to freedom of religion just as DAP\u00a0 defends Islam as the official religion of the country under the constitution,\u201d he said. \u201cPlease give \u2018face\u2019 a bit to DAP,\u201d he added in jest, drawing laughter from the crowd.<\/p>\n

To conclude the event, PR\u2019s de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim took the stage and began by apologising for his \u201cmistakes\u201d regarding the defections of PKR elected representatives, acknowledging that in the 2008 elections, \u201cit was really difficult to select candidates and there were many \u2018dangerous\u2019 seats.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Permatang Pauh MP also acknowledged that quality candidates were of crucial importance and also touched on the recent suspension of himself as well as Karpal, PKR vice president Azmin Ali, and Subang MP R. Sivarasa after they linked the BN government\u2019s public relations firm, Apco Worldwide to Israel\u2019s security agency, Shin Bet. Anwar showed the audience documents proving the link after\u00a0 Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein dared him to do so,\u00a0 adding he had not been given a chance to explain himself in Parliament.<\/p>\n

On the progress of PR, he commended the second-tier of\u00a0 PR\u2019s leadership for stepping up admirably in contributing to the Opposition\u2019s cause as the convention had been largely organised by this younger generation of DAP, PAS and PKR. He concluded by announcing that PR would hold an economic congress in March 2011.[THE ROCKET]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Change Now, Save Malaysia! [THE ROCKET] As the year drew to an end, Pakatan Rakyat held its second national-level gathering at the sprawling Dewan Milenium in Kepala Batas, Penang on 19 December 2010. Over 2000 people thronged the convention, which sought to build from the groundwork laid during the first convention in Shah Alam in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[157,79,64,158],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-community","tag-events","tag-pakatan","tag-pas","tag-pkr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}