Ramkarpal under pressure
Many feel Ramkarpal will win hands down but will he be able to equate or better his late father’s majority in the Bukit Gelugor by-election?
Athi Shankar, Free Malaysia Today
Following a 13-day by-election campaign, Bukit Gelugor voters would decide tomorrow, Sunday May 25, on who will be their next member of Parliament.
According to the Election Commission’s data, Bukit Gelugor has 82,431 voters comprising 61,267 or 74.33% Chinese, 11,913 or 14.46% Malays, 8,848 or 10.73% Indians and 403 or 0.49% others.
Some 148 early voters have already cast their votes in four stations on Wednesday.
The others would cast their ballot papers in 17 polling stations tomorrow.
Bukit Gelugor by-election is being held following the tragic death of incumbent DAP MP Karpal Singh in a fatal highway accident near Kampar, Perak in the wee hours of April 17.
On paper, it looks like a straight forward win for DAP candidate Ramkarpal Singh Deo, the third son of the late Karpal but the electoral debutant faces a different challenge though.
This time around, the DAP is not facing its traditional Barisan Nasional (BN) rival candidate from MCA which has opted out from the contest.
Ramkarpal, 38, is instead being challenged by Parti Cinta Malaysia vice-president Huan Cheng Guan and independents Nabi Bux Mohamed Nabi Abd Sathar, 63, and lawyer Abu Backer Sidek Mohamad Zan, 46, in a four-cornered battle.
Due to BN’s absence, Ramkarpal seems to be under pressure to either match or better his father’s previous massive majority win in the 2013 general election.
The late Karpal polled 55,839 votes to score a stunning majority victory of 41,778 votes against BN candidate Teh Beng Yeam, who garnered 14,061 votes in the 13th General Election.
When the DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng announced his candidature on May 10, Ramkarpal expressed confidence that he can repeat his father’s majority with strong coordination, commitment and hard work among all Pakatan Rakyat allies.
Fear of low voter turnout
But after 13 days of campaigning, a weary Ramkarpal is wary about a low voters’ turnout, dampening his desire for a big win.
The DAP beams with confidence of a win,but its election team acknowledges that if any of Ramkarpal’s opponents were to be able to keep their election deposit, it would be a massive blow to the party’s pride and ego, especially to Chief Minister Lim.
For a candidate to keep his deposit, the person must garner 12% of vote cast on polling day.
Sensing this, DAP is wooing Bukit Gelugor voters living outside to return to vote apart from aggressively urging local residents to turn out in full force to vote for Ramkarpal for a big win.
A random check shows that DAP’s Rocket symbol may not get the Malay and Indian votes that he expects for a big win.
Some observers said Huan may take the lion’s share of Malay and Indian votes, while chipping away sizeable Chinese votes.
However, Huan, who uses PCM symbol of Malaysians, did not want to be indulged in a guessing game.
“We will know when the ballot boxes are opened and votes counted.
“It’s difficult to predict. Bukit Gelugor is too big,” said Huan, who only hopes for constituents to save his deposit.
Bukit Gelugor’s state constituencies of Seri Delima, Paya Terubong and Air Itam are all DAP seats.
Some 22.6% Seri Delima’s 23,891 voters are Malays, who may vote for Ramkarpal’s opponents, especially Huan.
“Celaka” may hurt
Campaigns were under way in the past few days to ask Malays to reject Ramkarpal following Seri Delima assemblyman RSN Rayer’s perceived insult on Umno, as he called them “celaka” during Tuesday’s assembly session.
That triggered an ugly ruckus as some demonstrators, led by state Umno Youth, gate crashed and stormed into the Assembly meeting hall on Wednesday.
Although many agreed that the demonstrators should not have breached the sanctity of the August House, they equally fired Rayer for causing the whole fracas.
Some observers claimed Rayer’s comment could be a political entrapment to anger Umno and Malays, and woo the Chinese and Indians.
“Perhaps things were not going on well as expected by DAP among non-Malay voters.
“It may be an electoral trick to stir sentiments and fish in trouble waters.
“But only the results would show whether it worked,” said an observer.
