PETALING JAYA: The Kemaman parliamentary by-election in Terengganu will be a straight fight that is likely to see Perikatan Nasional triumphing over arch-rival Barisan Nasional.
Still, one analyst said there is a remote possibility that Barisan, which lost the seat by a 27,000-vote margin in the last general election, could spring an upset in the Dec 2 polls.
“This is why Perikatan is fielding such a heavyweight; they don’t want to take things for granted and be complacent,” said political scientist and Terengganu native Dr Mazlan Ali.
Clipboard10Perikatan, which is the federal opposition coalition, is fielding Terengganu Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar, who will be taking on retired Armed Forces general Tan Sri Raja Mohamed Affandi Raja Mohamed Noor.
According to Bernama, their names were announced by Kemaman by-election returning officer Ahmad Farhan Abdul Wahab at about 10.30am yesterday at the Kemaman Municipal Council, which was turned into the nomination centre.
A total of 141,790 electors are eligible to cast their vote in the polls.
The by-election was called after an Election Court nullified Perikatan’s victory in the parliamentary seat during the general election in November last year.
The court had ruled that elements of bribery had taken place during the campaign at the time.
In GE15, Perikatan’s Che Alias Hamid had won the Kemaman seat by a 27,100-vote majority over Barisan’s Datuk Seri Ahmad Said, a former Terengganu Mentri Besar.
Besides Kemaman, Perikatan, which comprises PAS, Bersatu and Gerakan, also took over all seven of Terengganu’s parliamentary seats in the national polls.
After its dominant performance in GE15, Perikatan cemented total control of the state in the August state polls when it swept up all 32 state assembly seats.
As a result, Terengganu has no opposition in the state law-making body.
Mazlan, who is a political scientist at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, said that it is this aspect of Terengganu’s political landscape that could be used by Barisan.
“Barisan is expected to campaign on the fact that Terengganu lacks any representative that could connect it to the federal-level unity government because all of its elected reps are from Perikatan,” Mazlan said when contacted.
“So they could make a plea to voters to at least give one seat to Barisan so that they can be that link,” said Mazlan.
Barisan is part of the unity government led by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
Another advantage for Barisan is that it has deep roots and many older supporters in Terengganu, a state that it governed almost uninterruptedly from 1964 to 1999 and from 2004 to 2018, said Mazlan.
Due to its dominance on social media, Perikatan’s support comes mostly from young and first-time voters who work outside the state.
But Mazlan said these voters might not come back to vote because of the low interest in the by-election, and the rainy season would not make it any easier.
“It’s because of these reasons that PAS will likely retain Kemaman, but Barisan still has a remote chance of springing a surprise.”
