UMNO victory in Bagan Pinang – what now?
By Sim Kwang Yang
As expected, BN candidate Isa Samad of UMNO defeated Zulkefly Mohamad Nor by a thumping majority of over 5000 votes, with 2920 postal majority contributing to the BN victory.
I have expected this result from the way the campaign has been conducted all along. Isa Samad is the local favourite. He was MB for Negeri Sembilan for 22 years, and he must have built up a vast network of social contacts and political patronage. Many locals of various races must have felt indebted to him personally.
The PAS campaign was apparently badly managed. This is what Raja Petra Kamarudin has to report in his latest posting in his Malaysian Today website:
“In Bagan Pinang, the opposition is so disorganised. There are allegations that Kuala Lumpur has taken over the Bagan Pinang election campaign while the locals from Negeri Sembilan are being sidelined. It was not until the fourth day after Nomination Day when PAS invited the other component members from Pakatan Rakyat for a meeting. In the end, PAS did their own thing while PKR and DAP, who were left out in the cold, organised their own programmes independent of PAS. PAS did not even arrange for the Wakil Rakyat from PKR and DAP to speak at the ceramah.
“We would have imagined that after the March 2008 general election, and the many by-elections since then, the opposition would improve itself because of the experience it has gained. This does not appear to be so in Bagan Pinang. It appears like they have gone backwards and acted like this is their first election.
“What has happened to Pakatan Rakyat? The Bagan Pinang by-election is not a PAS by-election. It is a Pakatan Rakyat by-election even though the candidate is from PAS. And how can Kuala Lumpur just walk in and take over while sidelining the local Negeri Sembilan boys?”
