Apr 12 2007
No surprises in Machap…
No surprise
http://www.sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=17616
Pauline Puah
MACHAP (April 12, 2007): There was a no surprise result. There was no mood swing among the rural electorates. As expected, Barisan Nasional (BN)’s superior machinery streamrolled for an overwhelmingly win in the by-election, as it did in the 2004 general election. But, the 481 decrease in the winning margin announced tonight did spoil the party for the BN which had clearly worked their hearts out to try and secure an even wider mandate.
Machap is also the first Chinese-majority constituency to see a by-election since the 11th General Election.
Machap is made up of 45% Chinese and the by-election was caused by the death of Malacca MCA chief Datuk Poh Ah Tiam on March 15.
The by-election is also seen by many political observers as a barometer to gauge the mood of the voters, especially the Chinese before the next general election. But this is an exceptionally rural electorate.l
The increased in votes for DAP in the Chinese-majority area of Machap Baru, though insignificant, is still a wake-up call for the MCA. More so, Machap Baru is Poh’s kampung.
In their respective post-mortems, the MCA will do well to determine the grouses of the Machap Baru Chinese while the DAP must surely find a way to win the hearts of the Malays and Indians for any real possibility to unseat the BN in the next general election.
This time around, DAP secured 527 votes while MCA garnered 914 votes in Machap Baru. In 2004, MCA garnered 1,270 votes while DAP got only 356 ballots.
The BN was confident of a bigger majority by fielding “local boy” Lai Meng Chong. The DAP’s Liou Chen Kuang is from Malacca town.
“The residents here voted for BN in last general election because of Datuk Poh Ah Tiam. He had done a lot for the villagers. But what has Lai done for us? We know him too well (to know his weaknesses),” said a young voter when met in Machap Baru on Wednesday night.
For the BN and Umno, they can take heart that, depsite the thousands that turned up at former Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s ceramah on Wednesday night, the crowd did not translate into votes.
Anwar had also made his rounds in Malay villages that saw him locked in warm shakes which did not really mean electoral support.
The BN was also able to retain the support of the Indian community. Machap is one of the few constituencies that feature a high percentage of Indian voters - at 15%.
DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng’s political secretary Ng Wei Aik said: “We had no chance to even talk to the voters in the Malay and Indian villagers who were either satisfied with the BN or had been intimidated not to see us.”
The Opposition had raised many national issues, alleged scandals and corruption but clearly these did not impact the rural folk.
Although the BN had won the by-election with its “development” trademark, unfortunately it had been marred by allegations of vote-buying and abuse of government machinery.
Updated: 10:22PM Thu, 12 Apr 2007
Popularity: 1% [?]
Related posts
Loading ...
