By-election will show level of acceptance for PH

VOTERS in Sungai Kandis don’t care much about 1Malaysia Development Bhd and government scandals. They don’t think highly of the candidates’ “impressive” list of achievements, too. All they want is for this first by-election since the 14th General Election (GE14) to be about them and address issues they face.

They want their representative to manage the garbage dumping site issue, water cuts, bad road conditions and stray dogs.

Petty as it may sound, but these are their concerns. Politics and national issues have taken a backseat.

Three candidates are vying for the state seat vacated by Mat Shuhaimi Shafiei, who succumbed to lymphoma cancer. In the May 9 general election, he retained the seat (formerly known as Sri Muda) for the third term with a majority of 12,480 votes, beating candidates from Barisan Nasional, Pas and PRM.

Pakatan Harapan named a local, Mohd Zawawi Ahmad Mughni of PKR, as its candidate for the by-election, while BN parachuted an Umno candidate, Datuk Lokman Noor Adam. The third candidate is independent K. Murthy.

The constituency has 51,230 registered voters, comprising 51,217 ordinary voters and 13 overseas absentee voters. It is a Malay-majority constituency with more than 72 per cent Malay voters, Indian (16 per cent), Chinese (12 per cent) and others (one per cent).

Political pundits agreed that although PKR had held the seat since 2008, the by-election would be an indicator of the degree of voters’ acceptance of the party’s GE14 promises, as well as the level of trust among Malays.

A political expert, who is coincidentally a voter in this constituency, said the by-election would be too close to call, especially since Umno and Pas have joined forces to secure Malay votes.

He said it was a different ball game in May, when BN and Pas fielded their own candidates and the votes were split.

Sungai Kandis Umno head Ibrahim Redwan said BN was engaging Pas members to cooperate on the ground, and engaging those on the fence to join their side

When met at the BN operations centre in Jalan Sungai Kandis, Ibrahim was hard at work.

“Sungai Kandis Umno will go all out to ensure the BN candidate wins the seat and address local issues. We can’t go on living like this.

“Every time we raise issues, the assemblyman’s office takes them in and that’s about it. We don’t get any response.”

Both parties are trying to engage local youth, who seemed to be rather quiet compared with the older generation.

In fact, the candidates are campaigning and engaging those from the older generation.

Most meet-and-greet sessions are with Pak Ciks and Mak Ciks.

A local lad approached by the New Straits Times for comment showed his ink-stained finger.

“The ink on my finger isn’t even fully gone yet, and you’re telling me we will have to spend another one to three hours lining up to mark an ‘X’ for some guy who may not be able to solve our problems?

“Don’t think I’m up for that right now,” he said.

Three of his friends nodded in agreement, while another asked: “Why was the late assemblyman fielded if he was ill? Surely they (the party) knew it was not the best decision.

“Whatever the politics was in that, it is not our problem.

“Whether or not we vote, the government will not change, so it does not make much difference.”

The sentiment is widespread here in Sungai Kandis. A 37-yearold father of four, who wanted to be known only as Ravin, said he was tired of politics.

Although he took electoral rights seriously, he said he could not promise whether he would turn out to vote.

“It’s just too early (after the GE14). The general election was to teach the government a lesson but with the way things are going, this, too, could also be a ‘teaching’ moment,” he said.

Civil servant Salmiah, 51, expressed similar views.

“If PKR were to lose, this could be a statement for the administration to buck up. We voted them in for a reason. But with what is happening now, it doesn’t seem like they know what they’re doing.”

However, she said, the elected representative needed to do his job on the ground.

There were too many issues that needed to be addressed, she added.

“We’ve talked about this. Our housing community representatives voiced this out many times, but nothing happened.

“We want these things to be addressed before we reach Wawasan 2020, please.”

The voters already know what they want, but who among the three candidates — Zawawi, Lokman and Murthy — can best deliver them?

And who will deliver the votes for the winning candidate: the youth or the older generation?

Will it be an upset (PH losing) or a surprise (BN winning)?

These will be answered on Aug 4.