Umno fast losing its Felda hold
He added that if these younger voters had returned home to vote yesterday, the voter turnout would had been 86% instead of 73%
(Berita Daily) – The Rompin by-election can be used as the yardstick for the changing Malay mindset in moving away from Umno, said popular blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin today.
He said that Umno was wrong in assuming that a higher voter turnout at yesterday’s by-election would have resulted in the party getting a 15,000-vote majority like it did in the 2013 general election.
Raja Petra, writing in his portal Malaysia-Today, said that the drop in voters appeared to be mostly from amongst the younger voters who were out of town.
He added that if these younger voters had returned home to vote yesterday, the voter turnout would had been 86% instead of 73% .
But he doubted if that would have meant Umno would have obtained its 15,000-vote majority.
“I believe if the outstation voters had gone home to Rompin to vote, Umno’s majority could actually have been slashed to just 5,000,” he said.
In the polls yesterday, Umno’s Hasan Arifin defeated Nazri Ahmad of PAS with a reduced majority of 8,895 votes. The former Pahang deputy menteri besar polled 23,796 votes against Nazri’s 14,901. The voter turnout was 73%.
The reduced majority was a far cry from the over 15,000-vote majority recorded by the BN at the 2013 general election.
During the by-election campaign, Umno leaders were confident of winning the seat with a huge margin.
Raja Petra said that while Rompin has a large Felda population, the younger generation from these settlements were not hardcore Umno supporters.
“If you leave them in the Felda settlements to plant rubber and oil palm they would most likely continue supporting the government.
“But when you take them out of the Felda settlements and educate them then they turn opposition supporter,” he added.
