'All Pakatan States Should Hold Local Polls', Free Malaysia Today, 11 May 2012

Political commentator Sivamurugan Pandian from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) insisted that Pakatan states should hold respective local polls before the next general election. He said by holding council elections in its states, Pakatan could prove that it had fulfilled its 2008 general election promise. Sivamurugan hoped that Pakatan states of Selangor, Kedah and Kelantan would emulate Penang by enacting a similar law to hold the municipality polls.He wondered why other Pakatan states had not been so enthusiastic to hold local polls. “Why has Kelantan never bothered to have the third vote despite being in power since 1990? “Are Kedah and Selangor comfortable with the autonomy to appoint their proxies in local councils?” asked the deputy dean of USM’s school of social sciences. Sivamurugan questioned why it took more than four years for the Pakatan state government to enact a law to hold local polls when many Penangites demanded it to be implemented much earlier. “DAP and Pakatan have to convince voters that it was not just another pre-election gimmick,” he said.