He said the coalition needed only to win two more seats than the 28 won in the 2013 general election to obtain a majority in the 59-member state assembly.
If Pakatan Harapan could maintain its previous level of support – the opposition won 55.14% of the popular vote in Perak in 2013 – and bring in another 5% more votes, it could gain power and defeat the Barisan Nasional.
Of the 31 seats won by BN, there was a small margin of victory of less than 1,000 votes in more than 10 seats.
“I believe Pakatan Harapan will be able to swing the extra 5% support, especially since they have Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad as its candidate for prime minister,” he said.
He was confident that BN’s partner PAS “will do badly” and that “many Perakians are disgusted that PAS is only interested in playing a spoiler role”. He said they believed PAS was “secretly in cahoots” with BN chairman Najib Razak.
Koon said that the poor attendance at Barisan Nasional ceramahs was a clear sign of discontent. “I was at the Barisan National ceramah near the Jalan Meru mosque, Jalapang, Ipoh, last night. The BN provided a few hundred seats but only 10% of the seats were occupied. That tells us what the situation is in Perak.”
He said Perak was now the second poorest state after Kelantan, as stated in the latest report from government-owned Khazanah Research Centre.
“It is true. Government figures show that two-third of the people in Perak earn less than RM5,000 a month and that household income in Perak is less than the national average.
“The pathetic state of affairs is made worse by the fact that according to the 10th Malaysia Plan, Perak is now the state with the most number of poor families: 122,000 households in Perak earn less than RM2,380 a month and they comprise 12.2% of the national total.”
He said ordinary Perak residents were complaining of a lack of job opportunities forcing them to leave for other states or Singapore in search of a living. The latest national migration report showed that 9,800 people left the state in 2016.
He accused the current BN state government led by Zambry Abdul Kadir of being incompetent, and said that the health ministry had been forced to cancel a RM150 million hospital project because the 50-acre plot allocated by the state government was former mining land, and it would be too expensive to fill in the former mining pond.
Koon said Perak residents were also unhappy with many unkept promises, such as a new hospital at Sri Iskandar and a special economic zone for Kamunting.
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