I was thrilled to have received an invitation to give a ceramah in Pekan 27 July. It was organized by PAS Pekan division which wanted me to speak.
Well, this is not any pekan, but the Pekan with a capital “P”.
I thought it must be exciting to have a ceramah in Najib Razak’s hometown. I readily accepted the invitation. In fact I had not visited the place before, neither I had previously attended any programs here.
Although it has been traditionally an Umno stronghold, Pekan voters are not blind followers of BN. in 1999 our current Deputy PM scraped through by merely 241 votes. At the time, PAS candidate Ramli Mohamed obtained 12907 votes and Najib 13148 votes.
Mind you, Najib slim majority included about 2400 postal votes from the military barracks.
Pekan was a seat held by Najib’s father Abdul Razak, Malaysian second PM. Razak was elected in 1955 and since then the seat has never fallen. As far as the opposition is concerned, Najib had indeed lost the seat in 1999.
Najib’s poor performance was an indication of how dangerous it was for Umno. It alerted the leadership of Umno the deep split in the Malay community. Umno also realized that it came very close to lose the political power.
I spoke at the same platform as PAS divisional chief of Pekan Utz Abu Kassim Manap and PAS Pahang information chief Syed Abdul Rahman. I also found out that Syed Abdul Rahman is related to Syed Shahir (MTUC President) who is also from Pahang.
I was the last and main speaker. The crowd was not as big as normal ceramahs of the East Coast. Yet I estimated about 3 to 4 hundreds people, maybe there were more sitting afar in the dark area.
I was no doubt that they wanted to hear the hottest topic in town. Were they drawn by the controversy of “French Dinner for 3″? Perhaps not. But they were certainly interested to hear about “the crime of the century”.
I told the crowd that like them I am puzzled by this gruesome murder. Now I came to his hometown as well as his constituency to seek my answers. I have many questions, but they were also questions which Malaysian public is eager to know. Here I came to Pekan, the home base of DPM/Defence Minister to raise these issues. And I intended to seek the prudent judgment of the voters.
Further, I also raised the issues of priority. The Ministry of Defence spent billions to purchase state of the art weapons, submarine, fighter jets and so on. Nonetheless our basic defence needs had been neglected.
For example, we paid USD900 million for the latest buy of Sukhoi, yet old Sikorsky Nuri helicopter bought in 1969 had not been upgraded. Clearly the Ministry of Defence is compromising the safety of our young soldiers in favour the cronies’ commissions.
After the ceramah, we were invited to the house of the host. It was a traditional Malay house, built more than 50 years ago. This was in fact Syed Rahman’s family house. His sister is now living here.
(In the picture above: PAS Pahang information chief Syed Rahman (standing), next to me was Ram, member of KeADILan Kuantan and his wife.)
We were served with a treat, with tasty Malay snacks and cakes. The home-made pulut (glutinous rice) and santan (coconut milk) was very delicious. I am not sure what was its name. We jokingly called it “Pulut PAS” because of the colour.
Above: Photoed with the host and Syed Rahman (left).
Above: The child of Syed Rahman’s sister (left) saying good bye to us.