He said the disaster, which also saw landslides, fallen trees and damaged properties across the state, was a signal that the state was ready to be taken back by the Barisan Nasional (BN).
“It is not impossible. It can be done,” the acting Umno deputy president said in his address at the party’s 46th annual delegates’ conference at the Gerakan headquarters in Cheras today.
“What happened there was a sign from God that this is the best time for us to retake the Penang government,” he said.
Penang was hit by a heavy storm on Nov 4 which led to seven deaths and about 2,000 people being evacuated to relief centres.
Zahid said Gerakan president Mah Siew Keong had the opportunity to lead the party to bounce back as BN had demonstrated that it helped the people without considering their race and religion.
He said his visit to Penang during the crisis where he and Penang chief minister Lim Guan Eng were seen hugging each other showed that he and the BN were “colour-blind” in giving assistance to the flood victims.”
He added that Prime Minister Najib Razak had also gone to the ground to render assistance without any prejudice.
He also said the DAP-led Penang government had claimed that it had solved the problem of flooding but this was disproven by the tragedy.
“They said Penang was free of flash floods but God showed that this was the best time to gain back Penang,” he said.
He said the incident would not have been severe if development activities in the state had been managed well.
The conference had earlier observed a minute’s silence for the victims of the flood.
In his speech, Mah said development in Penang had been under control when Gerakan had led the state government under former chief minister Koh Tsu Koon.
“It is easy to say yes to developers, but difficult to say no,” he said, adding that the current state administration had failed to properly develop Penang.
Mah said Gerakan was not a mosquito party as claimed by the federal opposition. “No one knows Penang better than Gerakan,” he said.
He said after eight years of “romance” with the DAP, Penangites had woken up to see that “the grass is not greener on the other side.”