Villagers fork out RM1,455 to thank DAP http://www.sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=17687
Giam Say Khoon PETALING JAYA (April 20, 2007): About 70 Machap Baru “grateful” villagers today resorted to a “Fancy It” way to thank the DAP for contesting in the recently concluded Machap by-election in Malacca. They passed the hat around to collect about RM1,455 and placed a “Thank-you” advertisment that was published in Sin Chew Daily today.
For the DAP, it was the first time that the party has received such a response from the electorates, though it contested the seat with little hope of winning. However, it managed to garner more Chinese votes compared with in the 2004 General Election.
A check with Sin Chew showed that the 10cm X 11cm black and white advertisment cost the villagers RM1,455.30, before discount if any.
Basically, the villagers thanked the DAP for “forcing” the Barisan Nasional (BN) to spend money and bring “development funds” to the villages in Machap.
Translation of the advertisement:
“Thank you DAP
The villagers of Machap Baru would like to thank DAP for participating in the Machap by-election, enabling us to enjoy various allocations, benefits and treatments, like building a recreational park, upgrading road, lamp, and irrigation system, building low-cost houses, upgrading the Machap clinic as well as allocations for three Chinese primary schools in the area.
In the past 50 years, the villagers have never been given the chance to enjoy all these infrastructure development.
Because of the by-election, the villagers’ lives have changed drastically, it is a blessing for the villagers and we hereby thank the DAP. – From a group of grateful Machap Baru villagers.”
When contacted, DAP’s losing candidate Liou Chen Kuang thanked the villagers for their support for putting up the advertisement.
“Obviously, the advertisement consisted some sarcasm against the BN. The infrastructures problems were already there for quite some time.
“The problems were only settled during the by-election,” he added.
Liou said he hoped the state government would keep its promise and realise all the pledges made by BN during the by-election campaigning period.
He said the government should always be concerned about the peoples’ woes, not just during elections.
A villager who wanted to remain as anonymous and who contributed to the advertisment, told theSun by phone that the villagers had chipped in for the advertisement to thank the DAP sincerely.
“We also want to tell MCA that they should keep their promises made during elections. If it was not for the DAP which made a lot of noise, we would not have all the infrastructure problems resolved,” he said.
The villager also said the government should not neglect the people once the election was over and they should continue to answer the people’s call.
Liou was defeated by MCA’s Lai Meng Chong with a majority of 4,081 votes in the by-election on April 12 following the death of Datuk Wira Poh Ah Tiam on March 15.
DAP secured 527 votes and MCA got 914 votes in Machap Baru compared with DAP’s 356 votes and MCA’s 1,270 votes in 2004.