Uphill battle for Pakatan Harapan
Dominic Chia
It is very obvioust he Pakatan Harapan team lacks ideas on to woo the locals in the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections. The Pakatan coalition represented by Amanah tend to touch on national issues instead of local issues which are close to the hearts of the locals.
Betting on national issues
On the national front, they often touch only on GST and 1MDB issues. The BN team, however, is quick to take advantage of the trivial issues and blunders by the Amanah campaigners to hit them back. Dr Wan Azizah’s “Kuih Bengkang” recipe and the distribution of “sawi” vegetables by Amanah are among others.
Advantage of being the local nominee
While BN contenders — Budiman and Mastura of Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar respectively — enjoy an added advantage as locals at both constituencies, Pakatan and PAS took beatings for their promises to pay only scheduled visits to meet the locals.
Locals don’t care
The Pakatan team probably has forgotten that the locals of Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar have no clue about the intricacies of the economy at large but are more concerned about their simple daily lives as farmers, plantation workers, fishermen and the like.
BN saved Chinese fishermen
Adding to this, the Pakatan team just watched helplessly at the BN’s success in saving the two Sekinchan-based Chinese fishermen from the Indonesian authority for encroaching the Indonesian territorial waters 3 months ago. This incident would become a major contributing factor for the Chinese votes – especially in Sungai Besar to return to the BN’s fold.
Rafizi’s miscalculation
Rafizi Ramli’s adamant stance to not face Rizal Mansor, the aide to Datin Sri Rosmah Mansor, over the private jet issue involving Rosmah Mansor, could also could be a setback for Pakatan. This incident is a stark evidence of Rafizi Ramli’s failure to explain about the jet used by Tun Mahathir for campaigning.
Hudud factor
Adding to this, the contesting parties’ stance on Hudud also believed to play an important role in garnering votes from the both Malay majority constituencies tomorrow. Amanah’s softer-tone on Hudud law, is definitely going to work against the splinter party of PAS.
In the eyes of a layman
Based on the ongoing in the surroundings of the twin By-elections, even a layman could easily speculate that the BN has an upper hand on PAS and Amanah in Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar.
The public also could expect a spike in the BN’s majority votes in the twin by-elections. And not to mention, the order of the parties according to the number of votes would be garnered tomorrow could be like: first place for BN, followed by Pas and Amanah respectively.
