VIDEO l 2.35 min

SELANGOR A slight majority among the Malay community across the country are now supportive of Pakatan Rakyat, Anwar Ibrahim said today as he started the 12th day of campaigning in Selangor.

NONE PKR de facto leader Anwar told a crowd of nearly 2,000 people, mostly Malays, in Taman Medan, Petaling Jaya, during a brief appearance that the swing in Malay voters appears to favour Pakatan.

He also quoted a recent survey conducted by Universiti Malaya Centre for Democracy and Elections (Umcedel), claiming that Malay support for Anwar is at least 10 percent higher than that for caretaker Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

Anwar made a quick tour of two urban seats in Selangor today and will cover as much ground as possible across the state before he heads to Johor to participate in three more ceramah in Gelang Patah, Pulai, and Johor Bahru.

His statement that Malay support has increased for Pakatan seemed to be evidenced by the support that he received during his ceramah in Taman Medan, where people flooded spaces in nearby shoplots and cheered on enthusiastically for everything that Anwar had to say.

Malays make up 61 percent of this crucial state seat, held by incumbent Haniza Talha of PKR, and the significance was more so as Anwar’s well-received ceramah was conducted adjacent to the Umno building in Taman Medan.

Once an Umno bastion

This was once considered an Umno bastion, with Abdul Wahab Ibrahim of BN winning in 2004 by a whopping 13,528 vote-majority.

However, Haniza won suprisingly here in 2008, beating BN’s Munaliza Hamzah by a 4,433-vote majority.

NONE However, she is expected to have tough fight this time around as Abdul Wahab, a popular personality among the Malays here, has been returned as BN’s candidate, with the presence of two Independents and one representative from Parti Kita set to split more votes for PKR.

While remaining largely confident that Pakatan will retain Selangor, Anwar delivered a warning to his supporters not to be “careless”.

“I am not making baseless allegations, but I have full information about planes chartered to fly in people from Sabah and Sarawak to vote in Selangor on polling day,” he said.

He urged everyone to check the status of their names on the electoral roll, exercise their voting rights, and even check in their areas if there are any suspicious voters.

“We don’t hate Indonesians, Bangladeshis, and Filipinos. They are our friends. But we must reject cheating,” he said to strong applause from the crowd.

“Insyallah, if all of you turn out voting, the amount of legitimate voters can still drown out all these fake voters,” he added.

He earlier spoke to a jam-packed crowd of around 500 people in a small field in Seri Setia, where the crowd turnout was also good despite it being an early morning programme, with participants having to wait under the hot sun to get a glimpse of the leaders.