Now, Umno wants to take on Nizar in Pasir Panjang

BN feels that by fielding a Umno and not a MIC candidate they have better chance of defeating Nizar.

IPOH: Former Perak Mentri besar Mohamed Nizar Jamaluddin is likely to have fight in his hands when he tries to retain his Pasir Panjang state seat in the coming elections.

In 2008, Nizar who is also PAS state commissioner, had won this MIC Pasir Panjang seat with a 4,474 majority vote over MIC candidate Dr S Vasan.

This state seat has about 66 percent Malay voters, 15 percent Chinese and 19 percent Indian voters.

According to sources, Umno now wants to contest in Nizar’s Malay majority state seat as it considers itself a better BN party choice than MIC .

When contacted, Nizar said “I welcome Umno’s move to contest against me.

”I believe that I have a better chance of winning it with a bigger majority than with MIC contesting the seat,” said a confident PAS leader.

His reasoning is that Malays in his sub-urban constituency are more knowledgeable with the political situation in the country and are more anti BN especially towards Umno .

Another advantage according to Nizar is that the Indian voters in his area will be angry with Umno for taking over the MIC seat .

Nizar told FMT that Umno has ensured that about 3,000 new BN voters have been moved into his constituency.

However, the PAS leader believes that the younger voters are more sympathetic towards his political struggle for democratic rights and will support him in his state seat.

BN has been attacking him with banners and posters in their party ceramahs.

Nizar said “Umno is making slanderous accusations against my personal and political image in all their ceramahs by calling me a serial liar.”

Meanwhile, Nizar’s recent controversial tweeting about the Johor Sultan’s purchase of the car number plate WWW1 has also landed him in hot soup, with Umno fully exploiting the .

The PAS leader had claimed that the various police reports against his tweets were politically motivated by BN.

The police are investigating this incident under the Sedition Act and the Johor police had recently interrogated Nizar at his Ipoh office.

This was followed by police raids on June 18 at both his service centres in Manjong and Bukit Gantang and also at PAS state headquarters while Nizar was attending the Parliament sitting in Kuala Lumpur.

According to Nizar, the police had confiscated a laptop computer from his Pasir Panjang service centre and he had also surrendered another lap-top from his house when demanded by the police.

Nizar is accusing the police of practicing double standard for threatening to prosecute him under the Sedition Act while leaving the daily Kosmo alone over an alleged insult to the Sultan of Johor.

Kosmo which is one of the Utusan group of publications, has published two cartoons on the controversy.