BN, PN contenders have own strengths to woo voters

KUALA LUMPUR: All Barisan Nasional (BN) and Perikatan Nasional (PN) candidates have their own strengths to help them win the support of their electorates.

Nusantara Academy for Strategic Research political analyst Dr Azmi Hassan said the candidate line-up announced by the two coalitions on Nov 1 was based on smart strategies to win the people’s mandate.

He said the strength of the BN line-up of candidates is that they comprise “original” members of its component parties.

“However, for PN, there are candidates from PKR or Umno, who are not seen as original party members. So, the question here is whether voters can accept such candidates.”

He said BN has strong support from Malays and the grassroots compared with PN.

“However, PN can also get Malay support because, based on statistics gathered during the Malacca and Johor polls, it was able to attract some of the Malay votes though not enough to secure a win.

“While BN is able to maintain the support of Malay voters, PN is only able to get the ballots of Malays from opposition parties such as PKR, Amanah or Warisan.”

On Nov 5, the nomination day, the Election Commission (EC) announced that it had received 1,386 nomination papers.

EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Ghani Salleh said out of this, 945 nomination papers were for parliamentary seats, 434 for state seats in Perak, Pahang and Perlis, and seven for Bugaya in Sabah, where a by-election is being held at the same time as the general election.

Among the big names contesting as BN candidates are Umno president Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and caretaker Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob who will be defending the Bagan Datuk and Bera seats, respectively.

Political analyst Prof Dr P. Sivamurugan pointed out that PN’s strength is having professionals as candidates.

He added that PN has fielded candidates who are able to sway the votes of opposing parties in their favour.