IT had rained earlier, turning the ceramah venue into a muddy padang. But that did not deter thousands of Taman Tun Dr Ismail residents from turning up last night to hear what Pakatan Harapan’s Segambut candidate Hannah Yeoh would offer them if elected.

The ceramah line-up featured a number of prominent women leaders, including former international trade and industry minister Rafidah Aziz, former Bersih 2.0 chairman Ambiga Sreenevasan and Karpal Singh’s daughter Sangeet Kaur Deo.

Sangeet, the first speaker, touched on how the BN government’s multitude of failures, particularly education. She highlighted Malaysia’s dismal performance in the global PISA rankings.

“It doesn’t matter if you are Malay, Chinese or Indian. As long as you are a Malaysian, you should be entitled to a world-class education that we have been promised,” she said to cheers from the crowd.

Rafidah, who continued her theme of the “rotten managers” ruining the country, urged the crowd to terminate BN’s “contract” at GE14.

“It really is important to know your power as the people. It is the power for you to choose the government,” she said.

The former Umno member said it was important to understand that voters are not electing Yeoh to Parliament but that they have the power to choose the government.

Former president of the Malaysian Bar Ambiga said Putrajaya has “robbed” Malaysians of making a change in the past two elections but now the time has come to turn the tables.

“We cannot withstand it no longer. We have no choice. They didn’t just rob us of money. They have robbed us of our future.”

Ambiga who resides in Segambut was Yeoh’s proposer and said the former Selangor state assembly speaker was fit for the job.

“I’m her proposer. It’s my honour to be Hannah’s proposer. You bet I’m endorsing Hannah. I have no hesitation,” she said, drawing applause from the crowd.

Yeoh, the final speaker of the night, touched on the contentious Taman Rimba Kiara issue.

If elected, she said, her promise to Segambut folk was to save their green lungs.

“If you don’t send in a new government to Putrajaya, I’m afraid Bukit Kiara would go missing.

“Therefore, this is my pledge to you people of Segambut. If I’m given the mandate to represent you in Parliament, I would fight for Bukit Kiara to be gazetted,” she told the cheering crowd.

She also denied “running away” from her state seat of Subang Jaya, adding that she could make a bigger difference by being in Parliament.

“I joined politics just for two reasons alone, that is to fight corruption and to fight race-based policies.”

Yeoh is facing caretaker deputy federal territories minister Loga Bala Mohan (Barisan Nasional) and Mohd Solleh Abd Razak (PAS) in the federal seat. – May 6, 2018.