Sunday April 28, 2013

GE13: Hard to fathom the quiet ground

Insight
By JOCELINE TAN

Apologies and kisses: Dr Mahathir walked the talk when he went out to endorse candidates regardless of whether they had been with him or against him in the past. He is seen here in Padang Terap where former Kedah Mentri Besar Mahdzir (kissing hand) is a candidate.

Most Kedahans have made up their minds about who they are voting for because the ground is rather quiet given what is at stake in this general election.

THOSE who were keeping count thought that Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid kissed Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's hand at least four times during a campaign function in Padang Terap.

Mahdzir, who is the former Kedah Mentri Besar, was visibly grateful that Dr Mahathir had come all the way to campaign for him. It is no secret in Umno that during the fallout between Dr Mahathir and Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Mahdzir had sided with the latter. And, as everyone knows, Dr Mahathir has the memory of an elephant he does not forget.

As such, there were more than just a few people in the audience counting the kisses.

Then there was the apology: “If there was anything that I may have done that was not right, I ask for forgiveness and I apologise to Tun. Sometimes, young people try to be too clever and make mistakes. I ask your forgiveness.”

Apologising is not easy and it spoke well of Mahdzir to take the humble path. All the Barisan Nasional candidates want his endorsement, including those who used to be against him.

He has made his rounds to almost all of the 15 parliamentary constituencies in Kedah since nomination day, lending his endorsement to the candidates and asking the party grassroots to give their support.

In Padang Terap that blazing hot afternoon, he told those gathered: “I have said before that even if the person is my enemy, if he is picked by Datuk Seri Najib (Tun Razak), I will support him. That is why I am here.”

His last stop that day was to endorse the Kuala Kedah line-up. Barisan had been totally rejected in Kuala Kedah in 2008. It lost the parliamentary as well as the three state seats.

A huge thunderstorm at dusk had caused a blackout at the location but the crowd waited till the lights came on. It was not only a big crowd but one that meant business. The way they roared when the candidates were introduced, it was as if they had already won.

As a middle-aged man in a blue T-shirt with the Barisan dacing noted: “It's been a long time since we have seen this kind of spirit in Kedah.”

About 200m away, a more subdued PAS ceramah was going on. The key speaker of the night was Datuk Omar Abu Bakar, a former special officer to Dr Mahathir when he was Prime Minister.

Omar is now with PAS and his task on the ceramah circuit is to speak of how Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was framed in the first sodomy trial, claiming that he had drafted the letter to frame him.

Mukhriz: Widely seen as the Mentri Besar candidate.

Omar is part of a PAS team to speak at selected ceramah around the country. Tamrin Ghafar, the son of Tun Ghafar Baba, and Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib are also part of this team. Their role is to reach out to the neutral Malay ground, to tell that they chose PAS over Umno.

Strangely enough, Aspan Alias who had joined DAP amid great fanfare is also on the PAS circuit. The former Umno politician from Negri Sembilan has only spoken once on the DAP stage since joining and his fling with DAP looks like it is over.

The PAS ceramah was evidently timed to neutralise the one on the Barisan side. But the ex-aide is no fight to the star power of his ex-boss.

Dr Mahathir is a major political factor in Kedah this general election. He was out of Umno in the last election but he is rooting for Barisan this round. For many Kedahans, he represents the quantum leap that Malaysia made from an agriculture-based economy to a modern industrial nation.

He also knows how to put complex ideas in a simple way. For instance, he criticised PKR for promoting “liberalism” which he translated as “semua pun boleh”.

He has used his stature to drive the message that the party must accept the candidates put up. He has been doing this months before the election and this round is a sort of a reminder tour now that the candidates have been named.

Umno is contesting the lion's share of the Barisan seats in Kedah and it is crucial that its members stand behind the candidates

There was unhappiness over the choice of a number of the candidates but Kedah has shown remarkable discipline this time. There have been no cases of the shutting down of “bilik gerakan” or demonstrations. Some call it a “miracle” but a lot of it has to do with the psychological preparation on the part of party leaders in the last two years.

The same sort of discipline is also apparent on the PAS side despite the last two years of warfare between Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Azizan Abdul Razak and Datuk Phahrolrazi Mohd Zawawi, who is eyeing the top post.

The two had been fighting like crazy but appear to have put their rivalry on the back burner for now.

Phahrolrazi's house in a middle-class suburb of Alor Setar looked too calm to be the home of an election candidate no cars or election workers, just a big PAS flag hanging from the perimeter wall.

Samples of two posters of him one in baju Melayu and another in a green shirt were draped over a sofa. They were to go up in Pengkalan Kundor where he is defending his state seat.

Phahrolrazi has survived an attempt by Azizan to push him to a parliamentary seat but his ally Dr Ismail Salleh was less fortunate and has been moved from a safe state seat to the Jerlun parliamentary seat where Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir is the incumbent.

Gooi: His father was a former Penang DAP strongman.

Mukhriz is now contesting Ayer Itam, one of the two state seats in Jerlun where he has been campaigning on a motorcycle. It is quite tough for Dr Ismail because Mukhriz is seen as Barisan's Mentri Besar candidate and Dr Mahathir will also be there towards the tail end of the campaign.

Ayer Itam is currently held by PAS but Mukhriz had decided that he should rise to the challenge rather than contest in the other state seat, Kota Siputeh, which was won by Barisan.

The PAS campaign has been quite low-key considering that it is the ruling party. The ceramah are small-scale and candidates do not have the resources to do house-to-house campaigning.

Smaller crowds

Even PAS deputy president Mohamed Sabu who is used to speaking before massive crowds had to adjust to small gatherings. His parachute status in Pendang has caused some resentment on the ground and the party machinery which is still loyal to his predecessor is not moving smoothly for him. He is on familiar, yet unfamiliar territory.

But he has been offering his “ABCD soup” asal bukan calon dacing (as long as it is not a Barisan candidate) to his audiences.

On Friday night, he was well received by the Thai community in Sungai Tiang where he tried out some Thai phrases he had picked up, including “chai” (win). But the lucky draw of hampers and free food also helped bring out the crowd.

By right, Azizan should be moving about to lend his clout to the other candidates but his health is an issue. He told reporters he regards everyone as family and they can come to his house anytime.

However, his seat in Sungai Limau is a PAS stronghold even though he is facing a four-cornered fight with Barisan candidate Fadzillah Mohd Ali who is his nephew and two independents.

The nephew had apparently told the uncle to step aside and take care of his health. The uncle reportedly told the nephew: “I will see you in battle.”

Sungai Limau lies within a beautiful and rustic padi-growing belt framed by the famed Gunung Jerai on one side and the Andaman Sea on the other.

But not far beneath the pastoral charm are undercurrents of discontent among the sekolah pondok or religious schools, which used to be the mainstay of PAS' support. In fact, these parts used to be associated with the three Ps padi, pondok and PAS.

The sekolah pondok community are disillusioned that PAS has gone mainstream rather than stay true to Islamic ideals. One of the independents going against Azizan was reportedly put up by the head of the Sekolah Pondok Pak Yah and the local gossip is that the other independent has the support of Phahrolrazi.

The ground in Kedah is rather quiet given the big stakes involved.

“People have decided. Any more ceramah would be preaching to the converted. But quiet is good because we don't want bombs going off like in Penang,” said Kedah Gerakan Youth chief Tan Keng Liang who is a controversial voice in cyberspace.

Both sides are of course hoping that the quiet ground means that voters have decided for them.

“People openly support us, especially the Chinese,” said Phahrolrazi.

But, said Tan: “I would be extremely surprised if Kedah does not fall. Tan Sri Muhyiddin (Yassin) recently gave the Kedah government an E'. I would have gone further and given an F'. They have not built a single low-cost house and the economy is not moving. Yet they are trying to tell Barisan how to run the economy.”

In Alor Setar's Chinatown, the coffeeshop talk is naturally about the Chinese candidates. The popular Alor Setar Barisan incumbent Datuk Seri Chor Chee Heung is again up against the handsome Gooi Hsiao Leung from PKR whose father used to be a Penang DAP warlord and whose uncle is Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon.

The Chinese say they like Azizan as a person, they find the PAS politicians humble and friendly, but they feel the party has not delivered as a government.

There was also some sort of mini storm in DAP when its Kedah chairman Lee Guan Aik was dropped. The two DAP candidates do not have his endorsement but were picked by the central leadership.

The joke is that in Barisan there are “calon cable” two of the candidates are seen to have big cables because they were the Prime Minister's political secretaries. But DAP's two candidates are “calon pintu belakang” because they came in through the back door.

Religion and politics are never far apart in Kedah but the slow pace of development has become a major campaign issue.

Almost everything that Kedahans take for granted today, be it the numerous mosques or the new flyover, was put in by Barisan.

It has put PAS in a rather defensive position and speakers at local PAS ceramah are often heard praising what Pakatan has done in the other states rather than what it did in Kedah and that is not a good thing for the incumbent state government.

For months, there had been talk that Kedah would fall. The real campaign has begun but the quiet ground has made it rather hard to predict.

> Joceline Tan can be reached at joceline@thestar.com.my

For more election stories, please visit The Star's GE13 site

More News

News

Sunday April 28, 2013

GE13: Hard to fathom the quiet ground

InsightBy JOCELINE TAN

Insight
By JOCELINE TAN