How the tide has changed in Kluang

ARCHIVES 2013

By admin-s On Apr 11, 2013

Lee Kaw

A visible shift in public sentiment in this Johor constituency reflects how the battle is shaping up in what was considered a bastion of the BN.

N. Nadeswaran, The Sun Daily

AFTER the DAP’s announcement on March 30 that its elections strategist Liew Chin Tong would be the party’s candidate for Kluang, a small group of party leaders including Lim Kit Siang walked nonchalantly into the Kluang Country Club. Members, who were having their beers after finishing their round of golf, gave a thunderous welcome and offered the visitors the hospitality usually reserved for VIPs.

Three days later, it was the turn of Johor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Ghani Othman to turn up at the club with trappings of pomp and protocol. But the response was subdued even though it is election time when you could get an unexpected windfall. Ghani announced a RM100,000 grant to the club from the state government.

These contrasting events reflect how the battle is shaping up in what was considered a bastion of the MCA and the Barisan Nasional (BN). The donation although welcomed, was met with cynicism – if he wants to give, why should we refuse?

One of the doyens of the club is Lee Kaw. He’s 74 and was DAP’s sole MP in Johor for just one term – elected in 1978, after which the BN through MCA has held on to the seat.

Last Saturday, he made his first political speech in a crowded shop house in Kluang after 26 years. But Lee Kaw still retains the fire in his belly despite staying away from politics since 1982.

Lee Kaw came out of “retirement” on a request to oblige an old comrade, Kit Siang, to assist the DAP in shoring up support for Liew to wrest the Kluang seat. And the thunderous reception and applause he got when he finally spoke at the launch of the party’s operations centre was indicative of his influence on the people. It was not just from Chinese constituents. The response he received when he popped by for a coffee at the nearby Kopi Tiam showed his popularity.

“Those days, we campaigned for our voices to be heard in Parliament or the State Assembly. We talked about the cost of contracts, the issue of land and Chinese new villages. There were 86 such villages in Kluang which were in need of development,” says Lee Kaw who was party treasurer when Kit Siang was the head honcho of the party.

Issues have since changed after all these years. Corruption, economic development and cost of living have taken centre stage. Locals say that Kluang has been left out of development. And of course, winning this seat is significant in Pakatan Rakyat’s (PR) proposed march to Putrajaya.

“We have been ‘colonised’ for 26 years. While towns like Muar and Batu Pahat have enjoyed so much development, we can only say that our progress has been stagnant,” says a local businessman.