Pakatan Rakyat won more seats in the Dewan Rakyat than in 2008, and made some inroads into Barisan Nasional’s fortresses in the South. The Opposition pact held Selangor and Kelantan, expanded its margins in Penang, and decimated BN’s standing among the Chinese.
Despite this, Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has declared that the election is tainted by fraud, raising the prospect of protests and social disorder.
This is behaviour unbecoming a modern democracy.
We believe that Datuk Seri Najib Razak has taken the right approach, calling for national unity and reconciliation. He has called for any disputes to be handled peacefully, through the authorities and with the courts, as would happen in any modern democracy.
We are particularly impressed that he would make this call, as his success in this election was offset by a loss of most of the Chinese vote to the DAP.
We call upon all parties, their candidates and their leaders to immediately accept the election returns and to work for change peacefully within our system, which showed its democratic strength Sunday.
For months, Pakatan and its NGOs have claimed that this election was already the dirtiest and most fraudulent ever, in an attempt to poison the electoral results before the polls were even held.
The allegations of fraud have become monotonous of late, but they are more illogical in light of the election results, where in the most transparent elections in Malaysia’s history, BN suffered enormous losses in the Chinese community, took fewer seats than in 2008 and only re-took Kedah while it lost seats in its southern states and Borneo.
If BN had intended to cheat, surely it would have managed better.
Pakatan’s well-poisoning has never been about logic or consistency. It has been about an all-or-nothing war against BN: If Pakatan Rakyat cannot win, then any BN win must be made illegitimate.
We have come too far as a country for this kind of nonsense.
GE13 proved that the rakyat is mature enough to weigh voters and candidates. We have leveraged racial harmony and our national advantages to become a model to Southeast Asia – and increasingly, the world. We have held the fairest and most transparent elections in our history.
It is time for us to move forward. The future calls, and we must answer it with moderation rather than extremism. That is the message from our Prime Minister, and we agree.
It is time for reconciliation, as one people, regardless of race, religion or political preference. As Malaysians.