Mohamad worried about opponents’ psywar efforts

SEREMBAN: Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan claims his opponents have quietly started a reverse psychological campaign by claiming that he will score a big win in Rantau, which may lead to many of his supporters living outstation giving the by-election a miss.

He said this tactic might also cause the Barisan Nasional election machinery to turn complacent and take things for granted.

“This psywar (psychological warfare) that they have started is my biggest worry now.

“It is my hope that my supporters, many of whom live outside Rantau, will not be influenced by this.

“They should turn up in full force on polling day as I’m going to need every vote,” he said in an interview.

The former mentri besar claimed that his chances of winning the by-election on April 13 were equal with his three opponents.

“Although I have been the Rantau assemblyman for the past three terms, I’d rate my chances of winning as 50:50 because Pakatan (Harapan) is the government. They will use all available resources to win.

“Many Pakatan leaders have made Rantau their base for the time being and have been coming down regularly to campaign,” he said.

He said he constantly reminded his election machinery to keep working hard as they had no big names coming in to campaign for him.

He said Dr Streram was being backed by Pakatan leaders such as Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and leaders from other Pakatan parties.

“I will probably only have PAS president (Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang) coming here for a ceramah perdana. That’s all,” he added.

Asked on Anwar’s pledge that he would include Rantau in his plans to develop Port Dickson if Dr Streram won, Mohamad welcomed the promise.

“It is very good, but I’d like to remind him that Malaysians are still waiting for the many pledges made by Pakatan in the last general election which have yet to be fulfilled.

“They promised to reduce petrol price to RM1.50 per litre and abolish toll and the National Higher Education Fund payments, but nothing has happened.

“People are suffering more because after abolishing the Goods and Services Tax, prices of goods never went down as Pakatan had promised. In fact, consumer items became even more expensive after the Sales and Service Tax was introduced,” he said.

Mohamad said he was worried about Malaysia’s finances as the national debt had actually increased by RM91bil within 10 months of Pakatan taking over Putrajaya.

“The debt rose from RM686bil to RM777bil despite the RM50bil in dividends the government received from Petronas,” he said.