'Rid Pakatan-led states of BN elements'

PKR Youth has urged the leaders of the five Pakatan Rakyat-led states to honour the opposition front’s election pledge to get rid of ‘Barisan Nasional elements’ in their administration.

“The people want us to have a total clean-out to eliminate the influence and corrupt practice of BN-Umno in the states,” Youth chief Shamsul Iskandar Md Akin said.

“PKR Youth reminds the Pakatan state governments not to waver or to cite 1,001 excuses. The ‘clean-out’ of BN elements must be done without any delay.”

He questioned why the opposition alliance has been “careless” about delivering this election promise, since it has all along accused BN elements of being “corrupt and having betrayed their promise to the rakyat”.

Shamsul was addressing about 600 Youth delegates at the three-day PKR annual congress, which kicked off today at Stadium Malawati in Shah Alam, Selangor.

The Women’s wing is holding its meeting alongside the Youth wing, while the parent body meeting will be conducted over the weekend.

Shamsul further questioned why party members have been sidelined from playing a role in state governments, which have given various reasons such as their inexperience.

“The main PKR leaders are from among those who are qualified, such as professors and experts in various fields. Why haven’t they yet been promoted to play a main role in state government operations?”

He warned that, should state government leaders fail to carry out these changes, the Youth wing would have no choice but to demand that they be replaced.

EC criticised

In a related development, Women’s wing chief Zuraida Kamaruddin said the March general election cannot be used as a yardstick of the Election Commission’s (EC) transparency.

“The huge swing to non-BN parties in the last general election was a result of voter awareness. The EC has failed to carry out holistic reform of the way elections are conducted,” she said.

Zuraida, who is also Ampang MP, said voter awareness was due to a campaign by opposition parties and NGOs, who had worked under polls reform group Bersih.

She argued that, had the EC implemented the changes demanded by Bersih, the federal government would be under Pakatan now.