Friday May 10, 2013

GE13: Despite polls defeat, Saifuddin wants to make Temerloh an education hub

TEMERLOH: Despite losing his parliamentary seat to PAS, Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah (pic) is bent on pursuing his dream of making Temerloh the education hub of Pahang.

Saying he was not disheartened by his defeat, he said that he hoped to reach out to his constituents through this new platform.

“I will be setting up a youth academy one of the pledges in my personal manifesto to continue serving my voters,” he said at a press conference here yesterday.

“The academy will provide three major orientations, comprising education and training, research and publication.

“My aim is to make Temerloh the top education hub in Pahang,” he said, adding that details of the academy would be announced later.

He said he was looking for a suitable location to site both his academy and service centre.

Saifuddin said he had listed in his manifesto four academies but he had to now put three of them on hold because he was no longer Temerloh MP and also due to budget constraints.

In the just-concluded GE13, Saifuddin failed to retain his seat when he was defeated in a straight fight by PAS Youth chief Nasrudin Hassan Tantawi by a majority of 1,070 votes.

The number of spoilt votes were almost as high at 977 votes.

The high voter turnout of 85.24% surpassed that of the national average.

Saifuddin said he would invite the Universiti Malaya Centre for Democracy and Elections to conduct a survey in the parliamentary seat on why he had lost.

“I want to know the factors behind my defeat and, since the centre is an independent body, the findings will be helpful to help me improve myself,” he said, thanking the voters who came out in droves to cast their ballots.

Accepting the decision of the voters, he said it was an important milestone and part of the democratic right of the people.

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