Despite losing by a majority of about 1,700 votes to BN candidate P Kamalanathan, PKR Hulu Selangor candidate Zaid Ibrahim vowed to soldier on.  

Obviously dejected, Zaid who was accompanied by his family, assured his supporters that this defeat does not mean the end of his fight for reforms in the country.  

The lawyer said this while addressing about 300 disheartened PKR supporters at the Kuala Kubu Bharu mini-stadium after PKR chief of strategy Tian Chua broke the bad news.  

NONE Zaid, who was seen wiping away tears during Chua’s speech, said that the fight for the Hulu Selangor parliamentary seat was unfair from the get-go.  

“(Prime Minister Najib Razak) came to Hulu Selangor with RM67 million to spend,” he said, saying that BN won because they bought voters.

He added that the Election Commission was also party to this offence because it turned a blind eye to BN’s ‘corrupt’ practices.  

“Buying votes in daylight and in the dark have become accepted as halal,” he said while BN supporters celebrated by lighting fireworks outside the stadium.  

Zaid also described the by-election as the “dirtiest and most corrupt” in Malaysian history.  

State gov’t will not abandon Felda

In particular, Zaid hit out at Najib for dishing out RM50,000 to Sungai Buaya Felda settlers as payment for money owed to them for over a decade.  

NONE This last-minute move by BN is believed to be the reason PKR failed miserably to garner votes from that area despite the efforts of the Pakatan government prior to the election.  

Zaid was however also quick to add that he was not offering excuses and accepts his defeat albeit with a heavy heart.  

In a magnanimous gesture, Selangor MB Khalid Ibrahim said that his government will not abandon Hulu Selangor, in particular the Felda settlements, simply because they failed to garner their support.

NONE The votes of the mostly Malay Felda settlers were what pushed Kamalanathan across the finish line today, with Pakatan winning big in areas with larger non-Malay residents.  

“Although Felda settlers did not support us, Zaid will still be heading the working committee to solve the problems faced by Felda,” indicating that PKR is certainly not done in Hulu Selangor.  

Hulu Selangor is Ijok No 2

Also seen shedding tears was DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang who noted that even though Zaid was defeated, the number of votes he garnered was higher than what the party won in 2008.

NONE Lim, the accomplished politician, was also clever to turn things around by pointing out that Pakatan has actually managed to win over more than 4,000 voters who had previously supported BN.  

“In 2008, BN won all the state assembly seats in Hulu Selangor with a majority of 6,300. Today we have taken back some of those votes,” he said.

The last to speak, Lim did wonders in lifting the spirits of the Pakatan supporters by calling the by-election a “buy-election” and labeling Hulu Selangor as “Pakatan Rakyat’s Second Ijok”.  

“In 2007 (Selangor MB) failed to win Ijok, but that defeat became the spark which Pakatan used to win the state of Selangor,” he said.  

The Hulu Selangor defeat, he said, will do the same, but this time it will be for the fight to take over Putrajaya in the next general election, he said to thunderous applause.   

VIDEO | 7 mins