Lim, who said Barisan Nasional appeared to be in the lead due to a vile campaign of character assasination and a difficulty of voters in outlying areas to access alternative information, said he still believed Zaid stood a chance provided "campaigners from PKR, PAS and DAP make a supreme effort to get every possible voter out to the polling stations on Sunday".

Lim said unlike the election in 2008, the 63% of Chinese voters in Hulu Selangor who voted for the late PKR candidate Zainal Abidin would not be able to ensure a victory against the BN this time aroun.

Saying the figure should rise to "80–85%", Lim said the 8,000 MCA members there could make the difference.

"I call on the 8,000 MCA members in Hulu Selangor to reject the BN candidate and to teach the MCA and UMNO leaderships a severe lesson by voting for the PR candidate, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim on Sunday," he said, and gave eight reasons why they should vote against BN, a move Lim said would be welcomed by millions of MCA members nationwide.

Among them, Lim said Pakatan Rakyat had displayed the real spirit of "1-Malaysia" especially during Thursday's debate on the Apco controversy in parliament, in which PKR, DAP and PAS represented Pakatan Rakyat, whereas only UMNO represented the BN speakers.

"One important message of the March 8 'political tsunami' of the 2008 general elections was public anger and rejection of UMNO political hegemony at the expense of the relevance of MCA, Gerakan, MIC, SUPP and other Sarawak/Sabah BN component parties," Lim reminded the MCA vote-bank.

The other seven reasons are:
-the government's move to increase three-fold the fines for traffic offences as proposed by Ong Tee Keat, the Transport Minister from MCA;
-the failure of MCA leaders to censure deputy prime minister over his declaration that his race comes first before his country;
-the long-delayed citizenship problem affecting thousands of people throughout the country as proven by press reports showing the Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein who resolved the citizenship woes of a senior citizen who waited for 50 years to become a Malaysian;
-the silence by MCA leadership to the emergence of Perkasa;
-the government's refusal to build Chinese primary schools except during elections;
-the refusal to recognise United Examination Certificate (UEC) when all top universities in the world recognise it; and
-the resignation of Joshua Wong, the producer of ntv7 talk show “Editor’s Time”, over censorship of the programme involving the Prime Minister’s wife Rosmah Mansor.