By FMT StaffSANDAKAN: Is Linda Tsen a reluctant candidate in the Batu Sapi parliamentary by-election? Many seem to think so given how she's being carefully guarded by her BN and PBS colleagues.
[Also read: Galas campaign still low key after 3 days]
During her walkabouts, she's was under “heavy protection" and was able to mingle only with the constituents.
One frustrated reporter said it was "so difficult to get to talk to her... It's almost as if she's unethusiastic despite all that BN and PBS are saying”.
Can anyone blame her? It has been barely a month since her husband's sudden death on Oct 9 in an accident.
And more than wishing her well, many in the constituency who knew her husband, incumbent Edmung Chong, are conveying their condolences and sympathies to this woman who is technically still in mourning.
Until Chong's death, Tsen was his quiet supportive wife and mother to their four children – Jamie Chong Sing Yi, 23, Charlene Chong Tze Yi, 20, and Steffi Chong Han Yi, 18 and son Douglas Chong Zheng Yi, 13. A graduate from Trinity Music School in London, Tsen, 54, is also a part-time music teacher.
Chong, who was PBS treasurer-general, was a two-term MP for Batu Sapi's 25,582-strong voter population.
In 2004, he won the seat unchallenged. In 2008 he beat an independent candiate by a 3,708-vote majority.
Calculated risk
In politics, it is said, you must strike when the iron is hot and fielding Tsen was a much-thought-out strategy to earn sympathy votes for BN.
That, it appears, was the only point in her favour, said a political observer who has lived in Sabah for over 30 years.
"Also, Chong won the seat by a large margin in 2008. Putting Tsen up is a well-calculated risk for PBS. It sees a win with Tsen but with a smaller margin even though she is inexperienced," said the observer.
The “investment” took some “gentle persuasion” from party stalwarts and eventually when Tsen's candidacy was announced, PBS president Joseph Pairin Kitingan declared her the “perfect person” to continue her husband's work.
Tsen in a recent interview said: “I just want to... carry on with what my husband has started.
"Because of his sudden death, a lot of things he wanted to do, he could not finish. So as a wife, I feel that I have this desire to finish what he started.”
Reading between the lines of the interviews she has given, mostly to government news agency Bernama, one senses her uncertainty amidst the structured campaign ceramahs and pre-arranged “meet the people” sessions in the run-up to the polls on Nov 4.
"I have the heart to serve, to carry on, to continue what my late husband had done for the people... I was always behind my husband, but now, I am the one in front,” Tsen had reportedly said when asked if she had the confidence to win.
Whether she will defeat seasoned campaigners like PKR's Ansari Abdullah and Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) president Yong Teck Lee, in this three-cornered fight, is anyone guess.
But past incidents, as in the case of Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail (Anwar Ibrahim's wife) have shown voters to be compassionate irrespective of politics.
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