PETALING JAYA: As the Nenggiri by-election in Kelantan reaches its mid-way point, both sides are taking the personal touch in campaigning seriously.
While Barisan Nasional is determined to knock on every door, its rival Perikatan Nasional is calling every out-of-town voter to return home come polling day on Aug 17.
Umno supreme council member Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan said the party is concentrating on going door-to-door in an attempt to meet as many of the over 20,250 voters in the constituency.
Ahmad said the coalition will deploy more of its national leaders to speak at small-scale ceramah in villages and settlements so as to get as close to voters as possible.
Perikatan Nasional, on the other hand, is urging its Gua Musang-based supporters and members to get their children who are working and residing outside of the constituency to return to vote.
Perikatan has identified about 2,000 outstation voters who are their potential supporters, said Dr Afif Bahardin, a supreme council member from Bersatu, one of Perikatan’s component parties.
Each coalition is aggressively pushing for every vote because Nenggiri, a former Umno stronghold, was won by Perikatan in the 2023 state election by a slim majority of 810 votes.
Speaking to Sinar Harian, Ahmad said BN preferred door-to-door campaigns and small-scale talks to better connect with voters and residents given the large distances in between populated areas in a constituency almost twice the size of Melaka.
“We would rather not force people to have to travel far to attend large ceramah. These big events also attract many outsiders instead of residents”.
Polling outfit Ilham Centre said that based on its surveys in Nenggiri, Barisan is investing significantly in the personal approach as it is courting supporters who may have abandoned it in the state elections last year.
“Based on the increase in the voter population last year, there was a significant swing from Barisan to Perikatan,” said Dr Mohd Yusri Ibrahim, who is Ilham’s head of research.
“If BN can persuade their old supporters to return to the fold, it can make a big difference given the slight winning majority last year,” Mohd Yusri said when contacted.
In the 2018 general election, Barisan managed to hold on to Nenggiri by obtaining 5,506 votes compared to PAS’ 5,045. But in the 2023 state election, Barisan’s vote tally was 5,707 compared to Perikatan’s 6,517, even though 5,000 new voters were added to the seat.
To maintain its winning majority, Perikatan’s leaders such as Datuk Seri Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man and Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin, have urged the party’s grassroots to contact and bring back young voters working outside the constituency.
“Our election machinery on the ground is doing well to reach out to voters here and to help them come out to vote,” Tuan Ibrahim said during a ceramah in Ladang Sungai Terah recently.
“But we must ensure that our children working and living outside must come back to vote. Please sacrifice a bit so that we can preserve the political power that God has given us. We want to increase our winning majority in Nenggiri,” Tuan Ibrahim told the audience of Perikatan supporters.
The ceramah’s host also asked the crowd to help younger voters return from places such as Penang and the Klang Valley.
“We ourselves have campaigned very diligently, but we have to make sure our children return. If they say they don’t have enough money for bus fare or petrol tell them that we as parents will give them bus fare or buy them petrol as we want to ensure our supporters vote”.
