PerakExpress

Andrew Ong | Apr 1, 09 11:34am

Ousted Perak menteri besar Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin is one of the rare PAS leaders who enjoy broad support from the non-Malay community.
MCPX

For the Bukit Gantang by-election, where Mohd Nizar is the PAS candidate, pundits believe that his popularity should translate to votes, and rake in the lion’s share of the 14,955 Chinese and 5,526 Indian Malaysian votes.

Sources in PAS and PKR - the two Pakatan Rakyat coalition members tasked with campaigning for non-Malay votes - however are not entirely confident that victory is already in the bag in this Barisan Nasional stronghold.

In the 2008 general election, the late Roslan Shahrom of PAS scored an upset against Umno heavyweight Abdul Azim Zabidi with a majority of 1,566 votes.

Both BN and PAS officials have estimated that Roslan garnered only 47 percent of the Malay votes and that he rode to victory by bagging an estimated 65 percent of non-Malay votes.

This time round, by PAS estimates, Umno will again have an upper hand among the Malay votes, and non-Malay votes would again be crucial to secure a PAS victory.

"We are targeting 70 percent of non-Malay votes," the DAP source told Malaysiakini.

The source however conceded that this would be a tall order given that polling day falls on a Tuesday, a working day, and thus the turnout among non-Malay voters could be lower.

'Come back and vote'

Many of them are believed to be residing outside the constituency in cities, and these opposition-inclined voters who are a valuable cache of voters for Pakatan Rakyat, are likely to give the polls a skip.

One of the factors which handed Roslan the parliamentary seat in 2008 was the high turnout rate of 72 percent. This time round, the Election Commission predicts that the turnout could be as high as 75 percent.

However, Malay turnout rate is often higher than non-Malays in Bukit Gantang - in 2008, the Malay turnout was 75.4 percent, while non-Malay turnout was 62.2 percent.

bukit gantang by election nomination day crowd people shots 300309 02"What the casual observers fail to see is that if the out-of-town voters don't come back, and the turnout is less than 75 percent, things will get dicey for us," said the source.

In fact, the looming possibility of a low voter turnout has driven DAP to produce a YouTube-based public service announcement urging out-of-towners to make the trip back home on April 7.

The video reminds voters about their role during the March 2008 'political tsunami' and that they are needed to reprise that role on April 7.

DAP leaders are worried they will see a repeat of the Kuala Terengganu by-election last year, where many Chinese voters did not return to vote as it was just a little over a week before Chinese New Year.

Bookmakers predict PAS win

Head of DAP's Bukit Gantang campaign machinery, Nga Kor Ming, is taking pains to emphasise this issue during his nightly ceramah rounds.

"Ask your children to come back for ‘Cheng Beng’ (Chinese All Souls’ Day, which falls on April 5) and ask them to stay for two more days," urged Nga, who is also Pantai Remis state assemblyperson.

On the other hand, Bukit Gantang may be different from Kuala Terengganu as the constitutency lies along the North-South Highway, which allows quick access to major cities such as Ipoh, Penang and Kuala Lumpur. This will make it easier for voters who are working in these cities to return home.

A second factor that has DAP and PKR worried is the prevalence of gambling in this by-election, particularly among the Chinese voters.

The talk is that bookmakers are handicapping BN by between 3,000 to 5,000 votes - a sign that they are confident of a PAS victory.

Given the generous odds, punters are likely to bet and vote for a BN win. History has shown that a significant number of punters is capable of influencing election results.

Nga has also been consistently raising this issue in his ceramah and blamed BN for the bookmaking activities.

"If you vote Umno just (to win) RM500, then Nizar might as well go to Kuala Sepetang and jump into the sea. This is Umno's trap," he told some 500 people during a ceramah in Taman Kaya, Simpang, on Monday.