Pakatan and Barisan in close race

PETALING JAYA: It’s D-Day today in Cameron Highlands with voters casting their ballots in the most closely watched by-election since Pakatan Harapan’s general election victory last year.

The results for the Pahang parliament seat will not shift the balance of power in the Dewan Rakyat, but the stakes are high for Pakatan and Barisan Nasional.

Pakatan has strong support in mixed seats and urban areas, but is relatively weak in Pahang and the other mainly Malay rural states in the east coast of the peninsula.

“Pakatan needs to win in Cam­eron Highlands to prove that it can win a parliament seat located in an Umno stronghold state,” said Uni­versiti Malaya political analyst Dr Muhammad Asri Mohd Ali.

Cameron Highlands is a traditional Barisan stronghold, but the coalition’s margin of victory in the past two general elections were slim.

In 2013, Datuk Seri G. Palanivel won the seat with a 462-vote majority while in 2018, Datuk C. Sivarraajh won with a 597-vote majority.

The seat fell vacant when the Election Court nullified Sivarraajh’s win after finding out that there had been vote-buying by Barisan during the election campaign.

Barisan’s decision to field a direct candidate in Ramli Mohd Nor added an unexpected twist in the four-way fight for the seat.

A win by Ramli would make him the first orang asli to become a Member of Parliament.

“Barisan’s unconventional choice of a direct candidate shows that it is very determined to win the seat in order to gain a much-needed boost after its defeat in the 14th General Election,” said Uni­versiti Sains Mal­aysia political analyst Prof Dr Siva­murugan Pandian.

Ramli is up against Pakatan’s M. Manogaran and two independents, Wong Seng Yee and Sallehudin Ab Talib.

This will be the fifth by-election since the May 9 general election last year.

Pakatan won the four previous by-elections – namely in Sungai Kandis, Balakong and Seri Setia state seats in Selangor, as well as the Port Dickson parliament seat – by comfortable margins.

Cameron Highlands may turn out to be a different story.

Observers say neither Pakatan nor Barisan has been able to gain a clear advantage during the 14-day campaign period.

Many predict that it will be a very close fight between frontrunners Manogaran and Ramli, meaning that neither will be able to get a big majority if they win.

The biggest fight has been for support from Malay voters who are concentrated mainly in the Sungai Koyan Felda scheme.

Malays make up 33% of the 32,009 voters, Chinese 30%, orang asli 22%, Indians 15% and the rest are others.

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad himself visited the Felda scheme yesterday, which Sivamurugan said was an attempt by the Pakatan chairman to woo the crucial Malay vote ahead of polling.

On paper, Barisan has an advantage when it comes to Malay voters.

PAS is not contesting this time around and is cooperating with Umno.

If Ramli gets votes from Barisan’s Malay supporters as well as PAS supporters, he would in theory gain an edge.

However, this can only happen if PAS supporters come out in large numbers to vote for Ramli.

“What normally happens is that when PAS does not field a candidate in a seat, its members and supporters do not come out to vote.

“How PAS supporters will vote is not certain,” said Sivamurugan.

Meanwhile, orang asli voters are traditional Barisan supporters but their tok batin (village chiefs) are influential in deciding how the community votes.

“The candidate who manages to win support from the tok batin will find it easier to get votes from the community,” said Sivamurugan.

Another possible factor that can influence the results is the turnout from the mainly Chinese and Indian outstation voters.

Sivamurugan said based on previous elections, the turnout from Chinese outstation voters tends to be low when the particular by-election has no major political significance.

The presence of former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in Cameron Highlands to help the Barisan campaign has also raised questions on how big an impact he will have on swaying voter sentiments.

Sivamurugan said the warm reception Najib received during his visits to some areas in the constituency showed that some people there were still fond of him.

However, he added that Najib’s appeal did not appear to be widespread but was limited to some people in the Felda scheme and orang asli community.

Polling for the parliament seat by-election starts today at 8am and ends at 5.30pm.

The Election Commission said it expects to announce the results tonight at between 10pm and 11pm.