JOHOR With less than 24 hours left to polling day, disgruntled pro-Pakatan Rakyat farmers across central Johor today descended on Labis in a 100-vehicle convoy to protest against the constituency's incumbent, Chua Tee Yong.

He is also deputy agriculture and agro-based industries minister.

The group flooded the streets around MCA's Labis headquarters and unloaded an assortment of fruits and vegetables including pineapples, corns, eggplant, cabbages and others.

NONE " We are bringing our produce here to make a statement that we are being productive, we want to expand but the government is not helping.

"If the government continues like this, we will find it hard to compete with overseas farmers," said 55-year-old Kulai Vegetable Farmers' Association chairperson Liew Show Kong.

Local villagers took the opportunity to grab the free produce while over 150 stood under pouring rain to listen to the farmers speak.

"I am an MCA member but today I stand here because I am disappointed at Chua Tee Yong because he has not cared for us," said 52-year-old farmer Lim Ser Kwee.

Lim claimed that while fishermen under Chua's ministry had received various subsidies and even insurance coverage, vegetable farmers were left high and dry.

"Is this fair? What has our deputy ministry of agriculture done? Is he sleeping?" he said.

NONE He added that Chua had in May last year gone to Kulai and urged farmers in central Johor to apply for land from a 2,000-hectare area at Kota Tinggi that was earmarked for farming, and that the application had to submitted within four days.

"After we went to Ayer Hitam for interview, in November we were inform that all of our applications were rejected, there were around 130 applications in total from Simpang Renggam and Kulai," he said.

The pro-Pakatan farmers's convoy came from several areas in central Johor, including Simpang Renggam, Pulai, Batu Pahat, Yong Peng, Kluang and Muar.

MCA taken by surprise

The sudden stunt took MCA members by surprise. Several of their members got out of their headquarters and others peered through the window while an MCA vehicle blasted recorded speeches of its president Chua Soi Lek to drown out the crowd.

Also there were DAP's Labis parliamentary candidate S Ramakrishnan and Bekok state seat candidate Lim Eng Guan who also took the stage, urging voters to back the opposition coalition at the polls tomorrow.

NONE The crowd chanted "May 5, change government" as they looked to the MCA headquarters to see indifferent looks from people at the windows.

Earlier, the convoy had similarly flooded Chaah, a smaller town 15km south of Labis town where they had also unloaded vegetables for the local villagers and made their case against Chua.

Police arrived within 10 minutes of the convoy's arrival but faded when the sky opened. The group dispersed around 40 minutes later.

The stunt appear to be a last-ditch attempt to build momentum for Pakatan's candidates there, who had complained that their machinery had been offered cash to sabotage Pakatan's campaign.