The 27 Barisan Nasional seats which will fall if the Teluk Intan Richter 6 "political earthquake" is nationwide

---

Media Conference Statement
by Lim Kit Siang

---

(Tampin, Tuesday): I had described the Bagan by-election result of Sept. 9, 1995 as a Richter 3 "political earthquake" and the Teluk Intan by-election result of May 17, 1997 as a Richter 6 "political earthquake".

In the Bagan by-election, the political tremors it created is not because the DAP through Sdr. Lim Hock Seng retained the seat which became vacant as a result of the untimely death of Sdr. P. Patto, but because the DAP won Bagan with a 11,802-vote majority, which is 100 times the majority of 118 votes four months earlier in the April 1995 general elections.

The Bagan by-election "seismic" event was historic and significant as it gave both democracy and the DAP a new lease of life, at a time when democracy was in peril and the DAP under trauma following the unprecedented landslide victory of the Barisan Nasional in the April 1995 general elections which nearly crushed the DAP, with many DAP leaders and activists utterly demoralised by the result.

The Teluk Intan by-election belongs to a higher order of seismic activity than the Bagan by-election for the following reasons:

• Teluk Intan was regarded by the Barisan Nasional as a stronghold it could not lose and the DAP could not win;
• A turnaround of 16,884 votes in the Teluk Intan by-election as compared to a turnaround of 11,684 votes in the Bagan by-election - as compared to the April 1995 general election results; and
• The Teluk Intan 20 Points as a mid-term judgement on the Barisan Nasional government in the two years since the 1995 general elections, representing the fundamental demands and aspirations of the people of Malaysia as to their vision of the government and society they want.

Among the main items of the Teluk Intan 20 Points are:

• Fully Endorse DAP's success in bringing down Tan Sri Rahim Tamby Cik as Malacca Chief Minister and Tan Sri Muhammad Taib as Selangor Mentri Besar and Demand that Muhammad Taib should resign as UMNO Vice President and Selangor Assemblyman for Batang Kali and be charged in court for corruption unless he could satisfactorily account for his vast properties and extraordinary expenditures which are out of proportion to his known sources of income as a Mentri Besar.
• Call on the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Mohtar Abdullah to uphold the Malaysian Constitution and the integrity of his office and to stop misuse of his discretionary prosecution powers and the selective prosecution against the Opposition and NGOs.
• Pledge full support to Member of Parliament Lim Guan Eng in his brave and courageous battle to fight corruption and establish integrity in high political places regardless of his own personal risks, so that Malaysia can have a good international reputation, and declare that Lim Guan Eng should be rewarded for making a distinctive contribution in Malaysian nation-building rather than being persecuted and victimised as if he is an anti-national criminal.
• Demand that the whole nation should make the war against corruption as the first item of national agenda with the national target to be among the 10 cleanest and least corrupt nations in the world - instead of being placed in the 26th position out of 54 countries in the Transparency International's international corruption perception index for 1996.
• Endorse the need for a strong Opposition in Parliament to check on the excesses, abuses and arrogance of power of the Barisan Nasional government which not only commands two-thirds majority in Parliament, but close to 90 per cent of the Parliamentary seats, which is unhealthy and dangerous to the mature growth of democracy and advance of human rights in Malaysia.
• Declare that development is the fundamental right of the people of Malaysia, and should not be used as a "government bribe" to get votes, as all citizens pay taxes to contribute to the government coffers and there should be no discrimination against the people in development on grounds of who is elected to reperesent the area.
• Strongly protest against another round of electricity tariff increase by Tenaga Nasional causing more hardships to the consumers, as the last power tariff increase was only in March last year and there had been no improvement in the quality of electricity supply, with over 100,000 power breakdowns in Peninsular Malaysia a year. What is even more unacceptable, the tariff increase is nothing but to profit the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to enable them to make huge profits (one IPP made over RM700 million profits from sale of RM1.2 billion of electricity to Tenaga last year) at the expense of the consumers.
• Call for a fair land distribution policy to Malaysians who need land, either for housing or cultivation.

The voters of Repah are now asked to endorse the Teluk Intan 20 Points. Although Repah is a state assembly seat, the principle and the need for a strong opposition to provide a check on the abuses and arrogance of power of the government is even more pronounced as there is now not a single Opposition member in the Negri Sembilan State Assembly to monitor the going-ons of the Negri Sembilan State Government.

A total of 27 Barisan Nasional MPs, including five Ministers and four Deputy Ministers will fall if there is a Teluk Intan Richter 6 "political earthquake" with a swingaround of 16,884 votes as compared to the results of the 1995 general elections.

These 27 Barisan Nasional parliamentary seats are:

Finally, a note on the Richter scale for measuring the scale of earthquakes. Charles F. Richter of the California Institute of Technology invented the logarithmic scale which are now referred to as the Richter scale for earthquake measurements. The term logarithmic means that each whole number step represents a ten-fold increase in measured amplitude. Thus, a magnitude 8 earthquake is 10 times larger than a 7, 100 times as large as a magnitude 6 and 1000 times as large as a 5 magnitude.

THE RICHTER SCALE

TYPE OF SHOCK	MAGNITUDE	APPROXIMATE TNT ENERGY
Micro earthquake (imperceptible)	1.0 1.5	6 oz. 2 lbs.
Potentially Perceptible	2.0 2.5	13 lbs. 63 lbs.
Generally Felt	3.0 3.5	397 lbs. 1,990 lbs.
Minor (Damage Slight)	4.0 4.5	6 tons 32 tons
Moderate (Damaging)	5.0 5.5	199 tons 1,000 tons
Large (Destructive)	6.0 6.5	6,270 tons 31,550 tons
Major	7.0 7.5	199,000 tons/9.9 a-bombs 1,000,000 tons/50 a-bombs
Great	8.0 8.5 9.0	6,270,000 tons/ 313.5 a-bombs 31,550,000 tons/1,577.5a-bombs 199,000,000 tons/9,500 a-bombs

["a-bombs" stands for "atomic bombs"]

(20/5/97)