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One is a state assembly seat in Kedah, while the other is a parliamentary seat in Perak. The Perak by-election will be of highest importance due to the current drama in the state. The seat is vacant due to death of PAS MP Roslan Sharuddin due to suspected heart attack.

The are calls by Perak DAP to put Perak MB Nizar as a candidate to gauge the people’s response to BN takeover of the state. The Bukit Gantang seat has majority Malays, so one can expect a close fight. DPM Najib has a terrible record of all loses in by-elections so far, thus its pertinent that he wins this one.

For the record, in the March 8 general election last year, Roslan had polled 20,015 votes against Abdul Azim Mohd Zabidi’s (Barisan Nasional) 18,449 votes. The third candidate was an independent, M. Morgan, who got 872 votes. Majority was 1,566 votes.

Bukit Selambau is an MIC-allocated seat, so let’s see who Samy puts up as a candidate. PKR does not have such a policy, so we cannot expect an Indian candidate here. Most likely will be Malay candidate. Currently, Pakatan leads with 22 seats against 14 by BN. If Pakatan loses this, the majority reduces and Kedah will be another target for BN since four reps jumping ship will cause BN to hold slim majority of 2.

Killer says:

I think PR is in a high-risk game here. For Bkt Gantang, it is a PAS seat and PAS and PR face a must win situation. For BN, a loss would mean nothing but a win will be an endorsement that ppl approve its backdoor takeover of Perak. Since Bkt Gantang is a Malay majority seat, PAS is at risk, more so if Nizar stands, especially after his “mohon derhaka” speech. This has developed into a super sensitive issue among Malays. Furthermore, remember UMNO is far stronger in Perak compared to PAS and PKR.

It would have been better if this is a Chinese majority seat since they have voted en masse to PR the last time and likely to do it even more since they are upset DAP had been kicked out. The chinese are the biggest losers in Perak since they dominated after PR took over. The Malays been the biggest losers. As for Indians, the ones who won just abandoned the Indians after they won in GE. They are busy gaining posts and business contracts.

As for Bkt Selambu, it will be a Malay candidate for PR since they have the habit of “cakap tak serupa bikin”. They will use racial sentiments to get vote for Malay candidates. It is just that our Indians have been stupid enough to buy their propoganda.

Anyway, Arumugam and PR’s reputation is in tatters due to this scandal. Let’s see what people say.

Posted on February 10th, 2009