COMMENT The confusion surrounding the Barisan Nasional candidate for the Hulu Selangor by-election is bound to be costly for the ruling coalition.
First and foremost is Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak's failure to secure a leadership transition plan from MIC president S Samy Vellu ahead of naming the candidate.
Knowing very well that Samy Vellu's leadership is a major stumbling block in winning back the support of the Indian community, Najib should have used every means possible to ensure that the veteran announces the date of his resignation before the candidate is named.
Another wrong approach taken by the BN-Umno leadership which has not gone down well with Indian voters is the way they ignored and snubbed MIC’s party’s hierarchy.
When it was publicly announced that MIC deputy president G Palanivel was the only name proposed by the party for the seat, the BN leadership should have made a quick decision in either accepting or rejecting his candidature.
For two weeks prior to the announcement, Palanivel was actively campaigning in the constituency giving the impression to voters that he, as the Hulu Selangor MIC division chief, would be the final choice of MIC and BN.
The last-minute switch has definitely infuriated his supporters in the constituency.
Ideal candidate
Despite his shortcomings, Palanivel would have been the ideal candidate to garner the majority of Indian votes as he had been working in the constituency for the last few months.
Since the death of its incumbent PKR's Zainal Abidin Ahmad, Palanivel has been at the constituency almost on a daily basis, attending to the voters and preparing to win back the seat which he had held comfortably for four terms prior to being defeated by Zainal in 2008 by a razor-thin majority of 198 votes.
In short, Palanivel knows every nook and cranny in the constituency.
He had also become a rallying point for other MIC branch and division leaders outside the constituency as they felt that by winning back the seat, Palanivel’s standing in the party and Indian community would be enhanced and this would enable him to take over the leadership reins from Samy Vellu.
BN's eleventh-hour rejection of Palanivel has led the Indian community, especially those in Hulu Selangor, to believe that it is Umno which decides the MIC candidate.
One ardent supporter of Palanivel who had set up a tent for MIC-BN well before nomination day (April 17), promptly removed the BN flags when the MIC deputy president was dropped.
He is now said to be working for Pakatan Rakyat, and is going all out to ensure that PKR's candidate Zaid Ibrahim wins the seat in the name of sweet revenge.
Furthermore, some MIC branches in Hulu Selangor are said to be seething in anger after BN named P Kamalanathan as its candidate, and are tacitly backing Zaid.
Malay support
Even the argument that Palanivel would not be able to secure the support of Malay voters also does not hold water. Irrespective of who the MIC candidate is, Umno's strength in garnering Malay support is still doubtful. With the strong influence of PKR and PAS among the Malay voters, at best Umno is likely to get about 50% of the Malay votes.
From another point of view, some local Umno leaders are also said to be working against the candidate from MIC as they know very well that if MIC fails once more to wrest the seat, then the seat will go to Umno during the next general election.
Complicating matters further, there are groups aligned to Hulu Selangor MIC Youth chief V Mugilan, who was initially touted as Palanivel's replacement, working against Kamalanathan as well.
On another note, MIC branches aligned to Palanivel are also upset with the selection of former MIC vice-president S Sothinathan as the election director for Hulu Selangor.
Sothinathan had contested against Palanivel for the deputy president post in last year's MIC election.
Only months ago, these branches were campaigning against Sothinathan in the party election but they are now forced to work with him in the constituency.
There are also other forces in Hulu Selangor which are working against the MIC-BN candidate because of their opposition to the leadership of Samy Vellu in MIC.
These forces are mainly supporters of former deputy president S Subramaniam, who are hoping that if Kamalanathan is defeated, the blame would fall on Samy Vellu and hasten the latter's exit.
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