A major battle on the cards in Bagan Pinang

By Baradan Kuppusamy - The Malaysian Insider

PORT DICKSON, Sept 24 — The upcoming Oct 11 by-election for Bagan Pinang, a narrow coastal strip in Negri Sembilan with about 14,000 voters, is an acid test for the Barisan Nasional (BN), especially for Umno and the MIC.

With estimates showing nearly 80 per cent of Chinese voters nationwide backing Pakatan Rakyat (PR), how the majority of the Chinese voters here will vote is almost a foregone conclusion.

The battle between challenger PAS and incumbent Umno is for the Malay voters who account for 66 per cent of the electorate, with many of them smallholders, farmers and armed forces personnel, and the 19.9 per cent of voters who are Indians.

The Indian voters, who number 2,834 and are mostly estate and factory workers outside Port Dickson, will be kingmakers if the Malay votes are divided.

But there is as yet no sign of a deep division among Malay voters, especially with the 5,000 postal voters, the majority of whom are expected to vote BN.

In the previous election, about 30 per cent of postal voters backed PR, debunking opposition arguments that postal votes are all marked for BN and stuffed into the ballot boxes by their bosses.

Unlike the other by-elections since March 8, 2008, Umno is defending its stronghold against challenger PAS/PR and therefore the outcome is an acid test for Umno — whether it is able to retain Malay voter support in the numbers it had enjoyed pre-2008.

Although just an hour’s drive from the state capital Seremban, Bagan Pinang is still categorised as rural, Malay and traditionally Umno.

It would be interesting to see whether this assumption is really fact or just a myth.

PR is the underdog in this battle and hoping for an upset victory and if that happens it could mean that Negri Sembilan is a state ripe for a takeover by the federal opposition.

The current distribution of seats in the state legislature is 21 seats for BN and 15 for PR (DAP has 10, PKR four and PAS one).

The ethnic composition of the state is almost like Perak with a high non-Malay percentage, making it possible for a combination of Malay-Chinese-Indian voters working together to overthrow the BN.

(Malays account for 54 per cent of voters in the state with the Chinese having 24 per cent and Indians 15 per cent)

Umno is confident of corralling the majority of the Malay voters in Bagan Pinang, with or without the controversy surrounding the potential candidacy of former Mentri Besar Tan Sri Isa Mohamad Samad.

Isa is a tainted, old warhorse and if Umno fields him, it is a tacit admission the party has no better candidate except for those who have seen better days.

It does not keep with the new image of a young, vibrant and reform-minded Umno that Prime Minister and Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Razak wants to portray.

Like Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said, the consequences for Umno are bigger than just winning Bagan Pinang.

For the MIC it is a make-or-break situation in Bagan Pinang with such a large concentration of Indian voters.

MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu has already made two trips to the constituency to meet grassroots leaders.

He has also appointed his newly-elected deputy Datuk G. Palanivel as the election director for the MIC tasked with cornering the Indian vote.

He has also divided the MIC team into three streams each headed by one of the three newly-elected vice-presidents — Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam, Datuk M. Saravanan and Datuk S.K. Devamany.

It is a tough challenge for the MIC to convince the Indian voters to support BN not because of any outstanding issues but because the MIC itself and Samy Vellu are the reasons why Indian voters have shied away from the BN.

Leaving the Indian voters to the MIC alone and to Samy Vellu is risky and foolhardy, political observers said.

“Najib has to go down himself to win over Indian voters… he is the Barisan leader and Indians want to see him and hear him speak,” said a former MIC division leader now supporting PR.

Like him, other observers also say that the Umno tradition of leaving by-election battles to the Umno deputy president is no longer a wise strategy with Indian voters.

“This is a major do-or-die battle and we Indians would like to see the leader leading us into the battle… not just the deputy,” said one local observer.

“We consider the MIC and Samy Vellu as lame ducks. It would take some convincing for us to back Barisan.”

PR parties will be hoping they can exploit the “cow head” protest as an issue to win over the Indian voters but they will also have to explain why it did not “save” Kampung Buah Pala in Penang.

Among the Indian community, the “cow head” issue has not caught on as a major cause compared with the Kampung Buah Pala incident which has sparked anger among the Tamil intelligentsia.

A host of Indian political parties — registered and unregistered — and Indian-based NGOs are expected to descent on Bagan Pinang to relate how PR allegedly “betrayed” the Indians in Penang.

Video CDs are being manufactured and pamphlets being printed to show the alleged “double standards” practised by PR leaders.

The by-election promises to turn this sleepy hollow into a major battle ground for the hearts and minds of the voters.