By Ronnie Liu

The Barisan Alternatif lost Sanggang marginally by only 1,038 votes in the 1999 general elections. From the election result, we could see that the PAS candidate managed to obtain about 58% Malay votes. He failed to win the Sanggang seat because he could only obtained about 32% of the non-Malay votes.

The Barisan Alternatif did not blame the non-Malay voters for not giving their support in the last general elections because we are fully aware of the fear tactics and falsehood launched by the Barisan Nasional which was very vicious but effective in swinging the non-Malay votes. We understand the dilemma of the Sanggang people, just like we understand the dilemma of the Malaysian people elsewhere.

But the situation is different now. No amount of threat from the BN campaigners should put our Sanggang people in fear this time as we are only talking about a by-election. A victory for the Barisan Alternatif would not change the status quo of the present BN state government. It would only add one seat to the eight seats already won by the BA in Pahang. The BN would still enjoy a very big majority in the state government with 29 out of the total 38 state seats. No one should believe that anyone can stir up a riot just because a loss in a by-election. We Malaysians have enough wisdom and certainly mature enough to accept any election results. The Barisan Alternatif are working together towards a just society, where everyone are free to chose his or her religion, free from oppressions and intimidation.

We hope the Sanggang people would not be misled again by the baseless accusations and lies made by the BN this time. We are also confident that the Sanggang voters would not be intimidated this time and they would vote in the right candidate without fear.

The time has come for all the people of Sanggang to break the "divide and rule"tactic used by the BN all these years. We are confident that the people would not hesitate to reject the real extremists once they find out the truth.