Dragons to clash in Ayer Hitam
Pakatan Harapan was initially banking on Pribumi president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to bring on the “wow” factor, but it has not happened, so Liew had to take the lead.
Joceline Tan, The Star
DAP rising star Liew Chin Tong has confirmed that he will take on Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong in the Ayer Hitam parliamentary seat in the general election (GE14).
The news is all over town even though it is meant to be announced when the party celebrates its 52nd anniversary in Ayer Hitam on March 18.
Hot news like this cannot be kept under wraps and it looks like Ayer Hitam will be Johor’s “wow seat” in GE14.
Liew is trying to replicate what his party boss Lim Kit Siang pulled off in Gelang Patah in 2013 when he went against the outgoing mentri besar, Tan Sri Ghani Othman.
Liew is also trying to make inroads into a Malay-majority seat and if he succeeds, he will set off alarm bells in Johor.
But can Liew, 40, pull off another Chinese tsunami in Johor?
GE13 was a perfect storm for the Opposition and there were serious internal problems in the Gelang Patah Umno division that led to sabotage and contributed to Ghani losing by a devastating margin of some 14,000 votes.
Dr Wee is no pushover. The MCA deputy president and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department is one of the most “jantan” politicians in MCA.
He has fierce political style and has built up a good track record after three terms in the constituency.
His winning majority has been going downwards since 2008 but he still managed to win with a convincing majority of more than 7,000 votes in GE13.
Ayer Hitam has two state seats – the Chinese-majority Yong Peng and the Malay-majority Semarang.
Barisan Nasional won Semarang by almost 5,000 votes but lost Yong Peng by more than 2,000 votes.
Liew, who is Kluang MP, is taking a huge risk that will either take his political career to new heights or pull the handbrake on it.
The Ayer Hitam seat was originally allocated to Amanah but Liew had put up a strong case for DAP to take Ayer Hitam in exchange for two extra seats to Amanah.
He could feel the political fatigue and disinterest on the Chinese ground in Johor and he felt that, as the Johor DAP chairman, he needed to light a spark.
Pakatan Harapan was initially banking on Pribumi president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to bring on the “wow” factor, but it has not happened, so Liew had to take the lead.
In every parliamentary contest, good candidates in the state seat can help carry the parliamentary candidates.
Kulai MP Teo Nie Ching may contest in the Yong Peng state seat to give Liew some back-up. The incumbent Yong Peng assemblyman Chew Peck Choo has been unremarkable and is likely to be dropped.
Teo’s name had earlier cropped up to take on Dr Wee but her party thought she did not have the clout needed and besides she tends to make statements that are way over her head.
Her earlier statement urging the Chinese to wipe out MCA in the general election was seen as arrogant and she suffered some backlash.
She used a very strong Chinese term, “wei jiao” (destroy), which the Kuomintang often used in their war with the Communists for supremacy over China.
Dr Wee has also lined up a strong back-up of his own – the candidate for Yong Peng is likely to be Ayer Hitam MCA division chief Ling Tian Soon.
It is a shrewd move because if you want the division machinery to move, you need the division chief to put in his 100% and making him the candidate would guarantee that.
It is unclear who will be the Pakatan candidate in Semarang but the Barisan incumbent, Samsolbari Jamali, is widely expected to remain.
Ayer Hitam is not going to be as easy for Liew as Gelang Patah was for Lim. Gelang Patah has 52% Chinese, whereas Ayer Hitam is only 38% Chinese.
Moreover, it will be a three-cornered fight with PAS taking away the pro-Opposition Malay votes that would otherwise have gone to Pakatan.
Liew seems confident that Amanah and Pribumi will help bring in the Malay vote.
Liew is also said to have become one of the blue-eyed boys of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who enjoys the younger man’s cerebral take on politics, and the elder man would want to campaign for him.
It will be a fierce fight at every level. At one level, it will be a fight between two ambitious leaders who have everything to gain if they win and much to lose if they do not make it.
At another level, it is a test of how much support Pribumi and Amanah has among Johor Malays and whether they can fill the lacuna in Pakatan after PAS was expelled.
Another significant indicator has to do with Lim. The senior DAP leader would have been the natural choice to take on Dr Wee. Or as his chief minister son likes to say: general must fight general.
However, a great deal has changed over the last five years. The Chinese mood has softened for Barisan while the Malay mood has hardened against DAP.
The biggest thing standing in the way of Lim is his age and health. He is 77 and is still in remission for cancer. His recent appearance in Parliament with a plaster over his forehead, and his left eye badly bruised and swollen half-shut, shocked many.
He had fallen in the bathroom two weeks ago but he probably wanted to show that he is fit and fighting and had given a fierce press conference in the Parliament lobby. The optics were not good, he should have waited till he was fully recovered.
His recent health issues have diminished his political aura and it explains why Liew has to step up to the plate in Johor.
