Tell UMNO we do not fear them! We will fight them to the end!

You guessed it. That was RPK’s closing statement at the first ceramah we attended at Tanah Liat, Kg Paya.

The crowd of about 800 roared when RPK uttered the words above.

Before that RPK gave the attentive audience a brief account of how all the races contributed in the struggle to attain independence from the Brits.

The crowd, mainly Chinese, many of whom had to brave the drizzle, were plainly appreciative when RPK acknowledged that when the Japanese were still here, whilst the Malays chose to co-operate with them, the Chinese elected to engage them in guerilla warfare, taking refuge in the jungles.

Midway through RPK’s delivery, there was a commotion along the narrow road leading up to the site of the ceramah.

And then people broke out into ‘Reformasi! Reformasi’

Anwar had arrived.

RPK wrapped up his ceramah.

Meanwhile the crowd had now increased to over a thousand.

Anwar was at his charming best.

Of KJ, he brushed him aside as being ‘Siau Ren’ ( Hawkeye educated me that this means ’stupid’).

He touched on the usual matters that he has been raising at his ceramah all over the country. You can catch these on any video hosted on Youtube.

And again, ketuanan rakyat was emphasised.

We left Tanah Liat at about 10pm and headed for Penanti.

The crowd at Penanti numbered around 2,500.

The ADUN for Paroi, Taufik, had the crowd laughing when he described how the Negri Sembilan state government had started a snake farm that cost several million ringgit and a few months later, most of the snakes had escaped leaving the farm near snakeless.

His conclusion : even the snakes cannot stand the BN government!

RPK warned the crowd that BN’s claim that they would win by a majority of 5,000 indicated the extent of cheating that we should expect. That this cheating would be facilitated if voters did not turn up on 26th to vote, leaving the way open for ‘pengundi hantu’ to take the place of the no-show voters.

For this reason, RPK urged those present to go all out to get friends and family to the polling station on Tuesday.

We left the Penanti ceramah a little after 11pm, and headed out to Bt’ Tambun for seafood.

Throughout the night, travelling to the ceramah sites, and then to dinner, could not help noticing a lot of empty chairs in BN cermah sites. Could not stop to take photos for fear of losing sight of the lead car. Will have to speak to Din Merican about providing a local in each car to make traveling a bit more manageable.

Update at 2.52pm on 24/8/2008 : For more photos on the ceramah last night check out Hawkeyejack