HE served as finance minister twice in the Dr Mahathir Mohamad era and last night, Daim Zainuddin turned up at Kg Kerinchi to stump for the Pakatan Harapan candidate Fahmi Fadzil.

The show of support for the opposition in the 14th general election, he said, was prompted by a number of things – such as disagreement over the anti-fake news law to redrawing of the electoral map.

But the main bugbear is the government’s failure to address the real issues close to the rakyat.

“The rakyat are unhappy over so many things and they failed to address that,” he said after addressing residents from the low-cost flats in Pantai Dalam.

“I have alerted the government and I said ‘be careful’ but they very confident that the rakyat will support them,” he said, disclosing that he had advised the Barisan Nasional government not to take the people’s support for granted.

The government has failed to address the people’s problems because it cannot understand the issue and refuses to tell the truth, he said.

“It is easier to tell the truth to the rakyat then the rakyat can trust you. The moment you fail to tell the truth, issues like inflation, cost of living, 1MDB, it (becomes) a huge thing.

“(On) affordable houses, you said PR1MA wants to build one million houses but you only build 20,000 and then you said you want to have a housing bank. But The problem is not the bank, the problem is that people cannot afford to buy houses.

“Why can’t they cannot afford it? They cannot afford because of their low salaries. The cost of living has also gone up. That’s the real issue.”

Daim also accused BN of being tone deaf, pointing to the anti-fake news law and re-delineation exercise.

“(They) are unnecessary. We have enough problems already. Why do you create more problems to make people angry?”

He said he also urged the government to come clean on the state investment arm 1Malaysia Development Bhd.

“I told them to tell the truth. Malaysians can accept it if you tell the truth. But if you deny and you use the law to manipulate things, then they will say ‘eh there’s something wrong. And then they don’t trust you. That’s all. Truth is very important.”

Fahmi is the Lembah Pantai candidate, replacing incumbent Nurul Izzah Anwar. His opponents are Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal Abidin (BN) and Fauzi Abu Bakar (PAS).

The seat has 80,346 voters now, following the recent re-delineation exercise compared with 72,396 in the 2013 elections. Raja Nong Chik is said to be ahead in the area. – May 3, 2018.