JOHOR Caretaker Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin today said the 20,000-strong turnout at Pakatan Rakyat’s ceramah yesterday does not necessarily mean they were supporting the opposition coalition.

“Last night I heard many people here came out to see (opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim), but that is just seeing, do they support or not, we do not know,” he said at a government function in Segamat this afternoon.

NONE Elaborating at a press conference later, Muhyiddin ( left ) said BN, too, had been able to attract similar crowds but did not make too much out of it.

“We are not influenced by such crowd numbers be it here (in Segamat) or elsewhere. In our programmes, we also have 30,000 or 50,000 people, and even though such campaigning is important it is more important to know the voters’ attitude.

“BN has the experience to know the voters’ attitude. When I ask people, sometimes they say they support us but in fact they don’t, so we can read the attitudes of the Malays, Chinese, Indians and everyone else, and take the necessary steps to increase our support,” he said.

‘Don’t be taken in by Ubah’

Earlier, after briefly officially opening the 1Malaysia Support for Housewives (1MS4HW) and the 1Malaysia job carnival, Muhyiddin spoke at length to the crowd of 1,500, most of whom are civil servants, urging them against changing the government.

NONE “There is a political party using the slogan ‘Ubah’, Ini Kali Saja Lah (This time only) they said. They asked to change the government because according to them this is an aged government, because BN has ruled for 56 years.

“But it is not a matter of age but our leadership skills and even though BN has been in power for 56 years, we have seen transition of leadership in a peaceful and orderly manner,” he said.

Muhyiddin said the change in the form of transition of prime ministers was orderly and every change had strengthened BN, without clashes or bloodshed.

“So it is not a question of being too long in government and the government must be changed... So do you want still want to Ubah (change)?” he asked.

However, the response was lukewarm except for the enthusiastic reaction in the first few rows, to which Muhyiddin pointed out: “I know those in front here aren’t Segamat voters,” inviting giggles from the floor.

Pressing his point, Muhyiddin said Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak was in the driver’s seat of a speedy train towards making the country a developed nation.

“If you change the driver half-way through just because the opposition says ‘Ubah’, it (the train) may end up going off a cliff,” he said, urging those present to vote wisely.

‘Pakatan’s campaign too aggressive’

Later, Muhyiddin also hit out at the Pakatan for a campaign that was “too aggressive” and made reference to the bomb incident at BN’s Nibong Tebal operations room in Penang, though he did not directly pin the blame on anyone.

“The opposition is too aggressive until - I do not know who did it, the police are investigating - but what happened with BN’s campaign in Nibong Tebal is serious and this is not the way,” he said.

He also criticised Pakatan for mocking BN’s leaders, stating that they lacked manners.

“To them, only they (Pakatan) are intelligent, everyone else in BN is stupid, even I am stupid,” he said sarcastically.

He added that BN can similarly do the same against Pakatan but it was not the ruling coalition’s method.