Be A Gentlemen And Accept Defeat, DPM Tells Opposition

JOHOR BAHARU, April 27 (Bernama) -- Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has called on opposition parties to accept the result of Sunday's Hulu Selangor parliamentary by-election and cease hurling baseless allegations against the Barisan Nasional (BN).

The deputy prime minister said the BN had won the by-election and the opposition to accept the decision made by the voters.

"Be a gentleman and stop making assumptions," he told reporters after visiting the customs, immigration and quarantine complex here on Tuesday.

He said it was not right for opposition parties to raise issues just because they were not satisfied with the result.

Muhyiddin was asked to comment on claims by opposition that the BN had resorted to vote-buying in the by-election.

In the by-election, BN's P. Kamalanathan defeated Datuk Zaid Ibrahim of Parti Keadilan Rakyat and recaptured the seat for the BN with a majority of 1,725 votes.

Kamalanathan polled 24,997 votes against Zaid's 23,272.

Muhyiddin also said that the BN would carry out a post-mortem on why there was a decrease in the number of votes for the BN among the Chinese voters.

"We will look at the figures from all the polling streams so that we can come up with strategies to strengthen the BN," he said.

On claims by DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang that Umno had "outsourced extremism" to Perkasa, Muhyiddin said, the non-government organisation had its own stand on issues.

"Perkasa is an initiative by several Malay leaders and if they want to voice out against certain issues to safeguard the interest of the Malays, it has the right to do so," he said.

Muhyiddin said that Lim himself, either through his blog or speeches, had been calling on certain races to unite to deny the rights of others.

He said that Lim was like in the saying "the pot calling the kettle black."

Also present were Menteri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman and Works Minister Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor.