There Is No Pact In Opposition Pact - Najib

Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the opposition parties, which purportedly claim to have formed a people's pact, have actually failed to reach a consensus and are in fact contesting each other in several constituencies in the 13th general election on May 5.

The Prime Minister said if they could not even reach a consensus on the seat allocation, "what more when running the administration of the country."

"The opposition pact is not a coalition that can ensure the future of the country and people. They are not a large coalition, nor a united front or adopting a common philosophy.

"Our country will be doomed if we give our trust to the opposition," he said in his speech when officiating the the housing project "Sentuhan Kasih Felda", at Felda Chini Timur 2, near here today.

Najib said the rakyat must be wise in evaluating the opposition pact because they had not done anything at all for the people.

If the people aspired for changes, the Barisan Nasional (BN) government had actually implemented many changes for the wellbeing of the rakyat, he said.

"BN too want changes, changes from within. The BN government shows that the changes and transformations are made from within, it does not necessarily mean changing the government, but our future that will change (through the BN government's transformation programmes)," he said.

During nomination of candidates yesterday, the PAS and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) candidates were facing each other in the parliamentary constituency of Labuan and six state constituency seats, namely Panti (Johor), Sg Acheh (Penang), Kota Damansara (Selangor), Bukit Besi, Kota Putera and Seberang Takir (Terengganu).

For the BN, which is an alliance of 13 political parties, the problem of seat allocations had been resolved in the best manner without any duplication.

Only a handful of the members of the component political parties have left the coalition and contested as independent candidates, including veteran members who refused to make way for new faces.

Among those who had left to contest as independent candidates were former Tasek Gelugor Member of Parliament (MP) Datuk Seri Shariff Omar who is contesting the same seat, former State Exco member Fadzil Hanafi who is contesting the Alor Mengkudu state seat and former Wanita Umno national vice-head Datuk Kamilia Ibrahim who is contesting the Kuala Kangsar Parliamentary seat.

Many members of the opposition pact had also left the coalition to become independent candidates, including incumbent MPs and State Assemblymen who were not happy that they were not renominated.

Two of them were DAP members, namely Jenice Lee Ying Ha who is the incumbent Assemblyman for Teratai and the incumbent MP for Kota Melaka, Sim Tong Him.

On Felda, Najib said the BN government would adopt a more systematic approach to bring significant changes to the settlers in the country, where under the second phase for the next 50 years, it would focus on efforts to turn Felda into an organisation of international standard.

"We are making efforts to bring major changes through the transformation programme using new technology where the local settlers can apply the new technology to produce local and trditional products," he said.

Under the 'Sentuhan Kasih Felda' project, 100 housing units would be built for the new generation of Felda settlers, and each unit would have a floor space of 304.80 sq metres with the houseowner being given subsidy and only had to pay between RM75,000 and RM85,000 per unit.