BN hopes to reduce PAS majority at Permatang Pasir

The battle lines have been drawn. Come Aug 25, Barisan Nasional (BN) takes on the opposition pact in the Permatang Pasir by-election.

The by-election will either confirm or dismiss the swing of the Malay votes to BN, as evident in the case of the Manek Urai by-election recently.

No doubt, the impending showdown would be fiercely fought between PAS which represents the opposition pact, and the BN candidate from Umno. Permatang Pauh Umno secretary Rohaizat Othman, 38, a syariah legal advisor, is the BN candidate. The PAS candidate is its Penang Commissioner, Mohd Salleh Man, 52.

The seat fell vacant, following the death of PAS’ Datuk Mohd Hamdan Abdul Rahman, 60, on July 31, from a heart attack.

BN and Pakatan Rakyat are going all out to prove that they have the support of the people. For the opposition pact, they are eager to show that despite all the internal bickering and bad publicity from the media, they are still a force to be reckoned with, and the choice of the people.

BN, however, badly wants to reduce the PAS majority and if possible, retake the seat to boost its morale as it can be read as a clear indication that the people are returning to the BN fold. The BN has lost all five by-elections in the peninsula since last year’s general elections which saw the BN lose its two-third parliamentary majority and five state governments in the process.

It only managed to win the by-election for the Batang Ai state seat in Sarawak, a traditional BN stronghold.

Four of the six by-elections were due to death-in-office of the incumbents.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has completed his first 100 days as the sixth prime minister, with a high 65 per cent popularity rating as polled by Merdeka Centre, an independent pollster.

BN came close to put an end to its losing trend when it nearly beat PAS — in its own backyard in Kelantan — in the Manek Urai by-election earlier this month. BN lost to its arch-rival by a razor-thin 65 votes. Najib described the outcome of the Manek Urai by-election as a morale-boosting “victory” for BN as the greatly-reduced margin showed that there was a major swing of votes towards the BN.

Despite the defeat in Manek Urai, there are encouraging signs for BN, as the number of spoilt votes was 117, which was higher than PAS’ majority win of only 65 votes, down drastically from its big margin of 1,352 votes in the March 2008 general elections.

“There was a big swing factor in Manek Urai. This means, we are regaining the people’s confidence and if we continue with our efforts, I believe the position of BN will become stronger,” Najib was quoted as saying.

However, BN’s fortunes took a tumble when Teoh Beng Hock, the political aide of a DAP lawmaker, died under suspicious circumstances, several weeks ago, while in the custody of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

Teoh was assisting in an investigation into alleged misappropriation of constituency funds by his boss, Seri Kembangan assemblyman Ean Yong Hian Wah, who is also a Selangor executive councillor. Najib took decisive action.

He announced the setting up of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into MACC’s manner of interrogating Teoh, as well as a coroner’s inquest into the death. Later, he said the scope of the Royal Commission would be extended to include the finding of the inquest.

Politically, Teoh’s case has been dealt with, but there are still some undercurrents that work against BN as the Permatang Pasir seat is the opposition’s stronghold because two out of the three state seats in the same parliamentary are in the opposition’s hand.

PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim himself, won the Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat last August in a by-election by securing 31,195 votes or a majority of 15,671 votes over the Umno candidate and Seberang Jaya state assemblyman, Datuk Arif Shah Omar Shah.

In the March 2008 general election, Mohd Hamdan polled 11,004 votes to beat Umno candidate Ahmad Sahar Shuib by a majority 5,433 majority to win the seat.

According to a BN analysis, PAS actually had only 30 per cent support among the Malays and this was indicated in several past election results even after the 1999 general election where Umno lost the seat to PAS.

“Therefore, they still need much help from Anwar’s supporters to get it through,” he said. After 1999, PAS seems to gain more Malay votes in the constituency after Umno support among the Malays dropped by 30 per cent, largely due to the fact that they are Anwar’s supporter.

Anwar was sacked as deputy prime minister in 1997 and later formed PKR. Many of his supporters in Umno followed him.

“In the 2004 general election, even with feel good factor with Pak Lah (Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi) as the prime minister, we still could not win the seat even when we knew Pas support was only 30 per cent,” said a party insider.

Permatang Pasir had been Umno’s stronghold until 1999, when it lost it to Mohd Hamdan who beat Ahmad Saad with a 3,154 majority. In the 2004 general election, Hamdan retained the seat, beating Datuk Md Isa Ramli with a 679 majority.

The details of the 2008 general election results showed BN lost in all the 11 polling stations, including in all high-majority Malay voter areas such as Kubang Semang, Bukit Indra Muda and Permatang Ara.

Therefore, according to Penang-based political analyst Datuk Cheah See Kian, this by-election would be an interesting ground for Umno and Pas to gauge their Malay base support again, particularly in mixed constituency, to assess the voters sentiments and voting patterns.

As pointed out by political analyst Dr Sivamurugan Pandian, the by-election would decide the future of politics in the country as the demograph of the voters did not reflect solely it was a Malay constituency. The constituency has 70 per cent Malay voters, 25.9 per cent Chinese, 1.6 per cent Indian and the rest comprising others.

However, Siva does not agree with the notion that Permatang Pasir is a stronghold for the opposition as prior to 1999, the seat was in Umno’s fold and the recent internal problems in opposition pact might work towards BN’s advantage.

He noticed that Umno had taken an early step to avoid internal sabotage during this by-election by naming all faction leaders to work as a team, with a stern warning that anyone found trying to sabotage would be sacked from the party.

“The reduction of the opposition’s majority in Permatang Pasir will be a big morale victory for BN as it would show the continuity of what happened in Manek Urai,” said Siva.

He added that the by-election would be decided by between 10 and 15 per cent of the young voters known as “saluran 3 and 4” in the polling stream as they were likely to play a major role in determining which candidate would be elected to the state assembly. — Bernama


comments


A win by one vote is still a win. Only losers will declare a win by reducing the majority of the winner.

UMNO can have many day Dreams in mixed Area, these are areas UMNO combined with MCA MIC and GERAKAN to deceive Malays Chinese , Indians etc... cheated Malaysians.

These kind of mixed Areas that UMNO reduced Non-Malays seast allocated for Non-Malays.
Now these are the areas "bite"back UMNO/BN.

PAS , this is a reminder to certain PAS leaders without non-Malays PAS can hardly won in Mixed Areas.

On the contrary, Malaysians of all races shall trounce BN/UMNO this round. PR shall work harder. If the police do not use DIRTY tactics to prevent campaigning by PR, PR shall win BIG this time.

Permatang Pasir is a PR stronghold. PAS had won many elections there. Then came Anwar Ibrahim and he helped BN won the seat. Then when Anwar went to prison the seat was given to PAS. Now Anwar is back and give his full backing to PAS so there is no reason that the seat will continue to be under PR. Furthermore PR is the state government in power.
BN's image of corruption all round also does not helped. It used to be only UMNO is considered corrupt while the Chinese parties are considered less corrupt but, now the corruption by MCA is considered mega size. So the Chinese in Permatang Pasir will probably dumped BN totally because they are not only percieved to be subservient to UMNO but equally as corrupt.