Senior citizens in the country have been promised RM1,000 annually if Pakatan Rakyat (PR) captures Putrajaya in the next general elections, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said today.
He made the vow after nearly 83,000 senior citizens aged 60 and above in Penang took up the state government’s offer of RM100 aid disbursed since April 1.
“I promise RM1,000 for each senior citizen in the country annually if PR wins the federal government,” the Penang chief minister told The Malaysian Insider.
He also said another 20,000 people have registered for the state aid, given under the Senior Citizens Appreciation Programme, as part efforts initiated by the state government to assist and appreciate the elderly.
Dismissing Barisan Nasional (BN) parties who had called the aid as a form of bribery, Lim said he welcomed the ruling federal government’s argument that it too provided RM300 to senior citizens as it was a good deed to care for them
“I can give them names of the senior citizens and they can provide them with the monthly aid,” he said, adding the aid was not a game of one-upmanship but as appreciation for the old.
“I am looking to the future and want to expand this to the entire country once we take over Putrajaya,” the DAP leader said.
DAP and its PR allies PKR and PAS won four states and 82 federal seats to deny BN its customary two-thirds parliamentary seats in Election 2008. PR now has only 78 out of the 222 seats in Dewan Rakyat after three MPs walked out and another was expelled this year. It also lost Perak to the BN in a political putsch in February 2009.
PR lynchpin PKR is now appraising candidates for the Hulu Selangor by-election on April 25, the country’s 10th by-election since the 2008 general elections. BN has only won two out of the last nine by-elections for both state and parliamentary seats.
courtesy of Malaysian Insider
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