‘Days are numbered for race-based parties’

For the first time voters are switching to multi-ethnic parties instead of supporting traditional raced-based ones, says PPP's Kayveas.

GEORGE TOWN: The young voters have had enough of race based politics and parties that represent only one race.

If one is to believe PPP president M Kayveas, the switch to multi-ethnic political parties have already begun.

Kayveas has come to this conclusion based on a study of registration of new voters done by PPP.

He said PPP, a multi-ethnic party, has registered the second highest number of new voters after Umno in the Barisan Nasional coalition.

He said his party registered more new voters for the next general election than race-based parties like MIC and MCA.

“Since December last year, the PPP has registered over 30,000 voters. Our focus is to get young voters to support BN in the next general election,” he said.

He added that PPP would stay focused in wooing young voters to support BN in the next election.

Kayveas said the issue of young voters opting for multi-ethnic based parties was discussed extensively at a BN Supreme Counci meeting recently.

“Other than Umno, the young ones are not keen to support just one race- based party,” he added.

He said coming in second to Umno in new voter registration was a plus point for PPP as Umno has the machinery to reach out to the largest number of voters who are largely Malay Muslims or bumiputeras.

Seeking another deputy minister’s post

Kayveas said PPP’s strategy was simple, which was to canvass support among the young voters, at least 5,100 of them in each of the 155 parliament constituencies where the party has a presence.

“Some 5,000 votes in our vote bank in each constituency is a huge statement as our voters can help decide who wins or loses.”

According to him, the winning majority in most of the 222 parliament seats, was an average of 5,000 during the 2008 general election.

Kayveas also said that PPP was now seeking for an additional deputy minister’s post because of its rising popularity. He claimed that PPP has around 577,000 members in 155 divisions nationwide.

In June last year, PPP senior vice-president Maglin Dennis D’Cruz was appointed as a senator and made Deputy Minister of Information, Communication and Culture.

Kayveas said the additional deputy minister post would be given to Penang PPP chairman Dr Loga Balan Mohan if the Prime Minister agrees to it .

As for seats allocation for the next election, Kayveas who plans to step down as president in 2014, said PPP has decided to change its strategy from outright lobbying to winning-ability.

“We will only contest in seats which the BN leadership feels we have the better chance of winning compared to our BN partners,” he said.

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