DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang has warned the Pakatan Rakyat not to sit on their laurels in the Kajang by-election, instead strife to boost the opposition coalition's majority in the constituency.

 

"It will be a fatal mistake for Pakatan Rakyat parties to assume that the Kajang by-election is a walkover with (PKR de facto leader) Anwar Ibrahim as the candidate.

 

"It is imperative that the Pakatan Rakyat parties of PKR, PAS and DAP speak with one voice and act as one unit not only to secure victory for Anwar in the by-election on March 23, but with a convincing majority greater than the majority won in the 13th general elections on May 5," he said in a statement today.

Lim said every vote in Kajang must be fought for and not taken for granted.

Yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, also BN deputy chairperson, unveiled MCA vice president Chew Mei Fun as the BN candidate for the polls.

Several independent candidates including former minister Zaid Ibrahim are expected to join the fray.

Lim noted that MCA will be holding an extraordinary meeting tomorrow to overturn a resolution barring its members from joining the government if its performance was than the last general election's.

'MCA must explain political blackmail'

The DAP veteran said MCA needed to explain this act of trying to blackmail the voters in the last general election to the people of Kajang as well as the rest of the country.

"Will the new Liow-Wee MCA leadership apologise not only to the Chinese in Malaysia but to all Malaysians for this disgraceful and dishonourable 'attempted blackmail' of the Chinese voters in the 13GE which failed miserably...?" he said.

Lim said the attempt to overturn the resolution has now been exposed as "utterly lacking in principles and fully steeped in political opportunism".

MCA saw its parliamentary seats again halved from 15 to 7 in the 2013 general election. It held 31 parliamentary seats in the 2008 general election.

In 2013, PKR won the Kajang state seat in a six-cornered fight by a 6,824-vote majority.

BN came in second with 12,747 votes. The other contenders were from Berjasa and three independent candidates.

Nomination day for the Kajang by-election is fixed for March 11 and polling day is March 23.