Subscribe in a reader | Subscribe by Email For a party that seen as lacking support from the community recently, it has quite a big number of members, nearly 1/3 of the Indian population. Wonder how many will actually vote for for MIC/BN candidates. Another problem is that 37% of its members are not voters! Perhaps MIC should start in-house campaign to get its members registered, unless of course these are members who are in “other world” now or who are invisible members. 🙂
MIC to woo 250,000 non-members
IPOH: The MIC will go all out to woo the more than 250,000 Indians who are not members of the party to vote for Barisan Nasional, its president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu said. He said party members have been working continuously to identify the voters, and brief them. “We have 630,000 members, of which 65% are voters. We are confident they will support MIC candidates and Barisan,” he told reporters after submitting his nomination papers to contest the Sungai Siput parliamentary seat here yesterday.
The 71-year-old Samy Vellu, who is also the Works Minister, will be facing Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) candidate Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj, who is contesting on a PKR ticket, and Independent Nor Rizan Oon. In the 2004 general election, which also saw a three-way fight, Samy Vellu defeated Jeyakumar by 10,235 votes. DAP’s Sanmugam Ponmugam Ponnan was the third contender for the seat.
On whether he was confident of a bigger majority this time, Samy Vellu said that even a win with a single vote was a victory. “When I contested for the first time in 1974, I got a majority of only 626 votes. I worked hard and tried to meet the wishes of the electorate, and increased the majority in the next general election,” he said. Samy Vellu said the number of candidates fighting for the seat was not important but that attention should be given to the preparations undertaken by Barisan to win the full support of voters.
On MIC’s chances of securing another 100% win in the nine parliamentary and 19 state seats it was contesting, he said a lot of hard work had to be done in three difficult constituencies – Lunas (Kedah), Prai and Bagan Dalam (Penang). He said he would lead MIC’s elected representatives on a state-by-state visit to find out the problems on the ground after the elections.
