WILL ANWAR DO IT ?RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN WHO STEPPED OUT OF A PRISON CELL TO LEAD HIS PARTY TO THREE STRAIGHT ELECTION VICTORIES

Jika terdapat sebarang spekulasi bahawa sokongan terhadap Pakatan Rakyat telah merosot di Kedah, maka lain pula suasananya di majlis makan malam mengutip derma di Alor Setar malam tadi.

Dewan Dewan Bandaraya penuh sesak sehingga memaksa dua meja yang diperuntukkan untuk para wartawan, dialih ke hujung dewan, menyebabkan sukar untuk mendengar dengan jelas ucapan yang disampaikan.

Kira-kira 1,000 hadirin menunggu ucapan Ketua Pembangkang Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (kiri), yang bergegas dari Tanjung Tokong, Pulau Pinang ke Alor Setar, sebelum bertolak pula ke Kangar, Perlis selepas jam 10 malam.

Ketua umum PKR itu disambut dengan tepukan gemuruh para hadirin daripada pelbagai kaum, sebaik sahaja beliau tiba pada kira-kira 9pm – lewat satu jam dari jadual.

Anwar diiringi pemimpin PKR seperti naib presiden, Datuk Chua Jui Meng; timbalan ketua PKR Perak dan ahli parlimen Gopeng, Lee Boon Chye serta Ketua Menteri 1 Pulau Pinang, yang juga pengerusi PKR negeri itu, Datuk Mansor Othman.

Turut hadir dan berucap di majlis tersebut ialah Menteri Besar Kedah, Datuk Seri Azizan Abdul Razak.

Apabila tiba giliran Anwar berucap, pada hadirin, kebanyakannya pertengahan umur dan berusia – separuh daripadanya dari masyarakat Cina – khusyuk mendengar komen dan cerita lucu dari ketua pembangkang itu yang membuat dewan itu gamat dengan gelak ketawa dan tepukan gemuruh.

PKR deputy president Azmin Ali called Datuk Seri Najib Razak “uncivilised” today for urging Umno to recapture the country’s wealthiest state, Selangor, with whatever “weapon was at their disposal”.

The prime minister said last month that Umno must forget it lost the central state to Pakatan Rakyat (PR) in 2008, but rise to win it back.

“I want to ask Najib, what does he mean ‘at all cost’?” said Azmin at the launch of PKR’s “Jelajah Selangor Tawan Putrajaya” (Jelas) campaign here today.

“Kill? C4 (bombs)? Rob? Snatch? Blow up? Bribe? This is a statement of an uncivilised prime minister who doesn’t believe in democracy,” he added.

Azmin also pointed out that PR only needed swing votes of 2.8 per cent in Sabak Bernam and 3.1 per cent in Pandan to win the parliamentary seats.

Umno’s Datuk Abdul Rahman Bakri is the Sabak Bernam MP while MCA’s Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat is the Pandan MP.

Azmin said PR was ready to wrest the Tanjong Karang parliamentary seat from Selangor Umno deputy chief Datuk Seri Noh Omar in the next general election that is expected to be called within a year.

“Even though Tanjong Karang is not represented by Keadilan but PAS, we want to tell Najib that our ties in Pakatan Rakyat are strong enough,” said the Gombak MP at a hall packed with some 200 PKR members.

“Our goal is one: Umno must be buried in the coming election,” he added.

Noh, who is the minister of agriculture and agro-based industry, retained the Tanjong Karang constituency by defeating PAS’s Mohamed Hanipa Maidin with a 3,820-vote majority.

Umno won the Sungai Burung and Permatang state seats in the Tanjong Karang constituency.

PKR also launched its election machinery in Selangor and its Wanita wing’s “Jelajah Kampung” (Wajah) campaign today.

Selangor PKR Wanita chief Haniza Talha said there was poor response among women to the party’s programmes during the first phase of the Jelas campaign.

“We want to find new voters, especially women… in rural areas… who do not support us because our message hasn’t reached them,” said Haniza.

As a politician, he is Turkey’s most successful prime minister of modern times, a man who stepped out of a prison cell to lead his party to three straight election victories, at the same time raising Turkey’s profile on the international stage and leading his country to unprecedented prosperity.

But on the streets of Istanbul’s deprived Kasimpasa and Kulaksiz districts, on the shores of the Golden Horn, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is simply a neighbourhood hero; the boy who used to sell bread and play football on the streets.

Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) gained more than half of the votes cast in Sunday’s parliamentary election; testament to the enduring popularity of a leader almost two decades since he first stepped onto the political stage as mayor of Istanbul in 1994.

But it is only the residents of Kasimpasa and Kulaksiz – workers from the countryside, shopkeepers, mothers, fathers, even children – who can claim Erdogan as their own, refering to their famous son as “bizden biri” ["One of us"].

In a local park in Kasimpasa, Ahmet Kara, Erdogan’s distant cousin and a 46-year-old former ship worker, sells tea where his famous relative once sold simit - the circular bread roll that is a popular snack in Turkey.

‘In our hearts’

“Erdogan is in our hearts, a man of the people. There are those that hold him in high regard and there are those who do not. But the majority of people living here see him as an example of what is possible if you work hard,” Kara said.

“Erdogan sold bread, I sell tea. He has proven that it doesn’t matter what kind of background we come from – dreams can come true for us all, and the longer he is our leader the stronger Turkey will be.”

Yasar Ayhan, Erdogan’s hairdresser in Kasimpasa stands proudly next to a photo taken together with the Turkish prime minister inside the Kardesler ["Brother"] grooming salon.

“I’ve known Erdogan for over 16 years, our fathers are friends. He is an honest person who has made our lives easier,” Ayhan said.

“When I went to the Hajj in Saudi Arabia in 1998, no one accepted the one million Turkish lira I tried to exchange. But when I returned in 2010, I was given 250 Saudi riyals in exchange for a one hundred lira note; that’s when I realised there’s life now, a future.”

Taxi driver Ragip Meral shows his support for Turkey’s re-elected prime minister http://melayukini786.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/will-anwar-do-it-recep-tayyip-erdogan-who-stepped-out-of-a-prison-cell-to-lead-his-party-to-three-straight-election-victories