PKR's de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim barely paused for respite after his gruelling seven-stop swing through Penang on Saturday before sweeping through Kedah on Sunday where he addressed even bigger crowds than he had encountered in his home state.

This prompted PKR's campaigner to up the rhetorical ante against the Barisan Nasional government.

Addressing audiences ranging from several hundred to a few score thousand in six stops between Kulim and Alor Star, Anwar met head-on criticism that he was a political chameleon who took on the colours of the crowd he happened just now to be courting.

"When I tell you I'm for justice, do you think I'm saying it only for your votes and not for reason that being Malay and Muslim I'm ashamed when there is rampant injustice and income disparities after 50 years of Merdeka?" he asked a crowd of about 5,000 people, many of whom were Indians, in Lunas in the parliamentary constituency of Padang Serai.

Later, in Kuala Ketil in Baling, he told a crowd of about 800 people, the majority of whom - in a surprise turn for the organisers - were Indians instead of the expected Chinese:

"I tell you now, if you build a temple near a mosque, I'll be in favour of pulling it down, but if you pull down a 100-year-old temple, I'll say you must have taken leave off your senses," said the PKR leader to a crowd that clapped and murmured its agreement.

Anwar was obviously referring to the controversial destruction of a 100-year-old Hindu temple in Shah Alam last month.

"I'm for Islam, not Islam Hadhari, simply Islam, period," he emphasised.

He continued: "This Islam I'm for places a high value on justice, on doing right by the people, not on saying one thing and doing something else."

Lack consistency but not a contrarian

Showing a capacity to shift from treble to bass, Anwar told a mixed-race crowd of 350 people, composed of corporate types, small businessmen and wage earners, in Kulim:

"The past nine years in our country have been years the locusts have eaten. They have eaten away the independence and impartiality of the judiciary, the professionalism of the police force, the attractiveness of Malaysia as a locus for foreign direct investment. Corruption is rampant, mediocrity is rife.

"We lag behind where we once led or were close to leading. But BN leaders tell the people they never had it so good.

"These leaders are either the greatly deluded or the greatly deluding. What else can you expect from them when the right hand does not know what the left is doing, when one step taken forward is followed by two in retreat from positions that cried out to be improved upon. This is a government of confusion confounded."

After pausing for prayers at Masjid Bakar Arang, Anwar told a a fairly affluent crowd of about 2,500 people, mainly Indians, in Sungai Petani that "when you are part of the crew or rising within its ranks, you cannot enjoy the same latitude for action and manoeuvre that you can have when you are deputy skipper or, better still, head perfect."

"This is something anyone knows who has been part of a team. You know it in your marrow. I may lack consistency but I'm not contrarian. I would be for justice nine times out of 10," he said, again responding to criticisms to his past political actions when he was in Umno.

50,000 crowd in Alor Star

Bringing his litany of criticisms of the BN to a crescendo before a crowd that organisers estimated at 50,000 of mostly Malays at Batu Sembilan in Alor Star, Anwar held the audience in rapt attention with a 70-minute oration.

"What is the meaning of 50 years of Merdeka when almost the entire country is dotted with pockets of poverty where there is no electricity and piped water?

"Just one hour outside Kuala Lumpur and you have people in Ijok who have no piped water, no electricity.

"Can you say in good conscience that there will always be poor people and go ahead and approve massive and unneeded projects like the one in Penang island that will cost RM25 billion?

"What is the point of building grandiose projects and of having growth corridors when many people still live in grinding poverty?

"I say it is better to have millions of ordinarily comfortable people to a coterie of billionaries who live in unconscionable wealth while thousands languish in poverty?

"It is time for change in Malaysia. This is the time for it. The hour has come, the time is well nigh," said Anwar to a crowd whose parked motorcycles and cars held up traffic along Batu Sembilan for several kilometres to the ceramah venue well past midnight.