As election nears, Nizar woos Umno voters with breakfast

Nizar said the weekly sessions allow him to address some Malay voters’ concerns about him and the PR pact. — file picIPOH, April 7 ― Borrowing from the belief that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, Perak’s former mentri besar Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin has been working his charm on Umno voters by buying them breakfast in their favourite coffeeshop haunts every Friday morning.

The weekly session sometimes go on for nearly two hours and are mostly held in the more remote Malay-majority interiors of Nizar’s constituencies ― his state seat of Pasir Panjang in the Seri Manjung district and in the Bukit Gantang parliamentary constituency up north.

His aim is to tackle Perak’s Malay vote, which observers believe will be Pakatan Rakyat’s (PR) toughest nut to crack in Election 2013, but Nizar said his breakfast strategy has worked wonders with these Umno loyalists.

From barely 28 per cent of Malay support in Election 2008, Nizar said internal and public-commissioned ground surveys have indicated that the now more cohesive DAP-PKR-PAS pact under the PR umbrella would score at least 32 per cent of the Malay votes in the coming polls.

He confidently predicted a 38-seat win for Perak PR, which would allow the pact to form the state government with a comfortable 17-seat majority in the 59-seat state legislative assembly.

“They like the free breakfast... and they can order whatever they like,” Nizar toldThe Malaysian Insider in a recent interview here. “They even abuse (the opportunity) by taking cigarettes as well... (but) we don’t mind paying for the packet.”

In return, Nizar explained that he is given the opportunity to personally engage with these voters and shake off some of the criticisms against him over the past four years.

He said many pro-Barisan Nasional (BN) supporters had finally dared approach and speak to him, allowing him to explain PR’s position on many key issues as well as remind them of the 2009 power grab that saw his tenure as mentri besar cut short.

PR’s ceramah events are usually poorly-attended by these voters, Nizar explained, saying the Malays in the deeper interiors of Perak often refuse to entertain PR leaders.

“Maybe they were brainwashed by the Umno media. You are right in saying that we have had a lot of resistance from the Malay voters in these faraway, remote villages,” he said.

“But while this was true a year-and-a-half ago, we have managed to change that scenario now.

“For example, I was able to convince, in my constituency, a group of Umno contractors who had this pre-conceived idea of me that was painted by Umno, that I am a guy who is only a stooge of the DAP, that I have no standing of my own,” the bespectacled 56-year-old politician said.

“But I held my own when they questioned me and they were convinced that if this was the case, then what they had previously swallowed had only been lies.”

During his breakfast chats, Nizar said his team also distribute CDs, pamphlet and other informational material that the outspoken leader described as “war bullets” to attack PR’s political foes in BN.

Chief among these is a glossy, double-sided, A4-sized photograph, which he said shows a young, almost “teenage-like” Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, the wife of caretaker prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, and the RM24 million diamond ring she has been accused of buying. The reverse side of the photograph shows Wanita Umno chief Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil “teasing her cows”, Nizar said laughingly, referring to the former senator’s controversial link to the National Feedlot Centre scandal.

These materials are also distributed personally to homes that party election workers have identified as those of staunch supporters of Umno and BN, he added.

“And they (voters) even request for more,” Nizar laughed, adding that the campaign technique has helped PR’s campaign to prove the alleged extravagance of Umno leaders.

“They want to frame them because they are so beautiful... shiny and glossy,” he said.

These personal touches to PR’s campaign, Nizar said, have helped boost the pact’s Malay support, which is seen as key to its hope to recapture the state in Election 2013.

He added that his 38-seat win prediction was more a “conservative” figure as even those among Umno’s circles are confident that BN could only win in 24 of the state’s 59 seats.

To form a simple-majority government, either side will need to score at least 30 of the 59 seats.

In Election 2008, opposition parties DAP, PAS and PKR chalked a surprise victory when it won in 31 seats, allowing it to form the Perak government with a small three-seat majority.

Less than a year later in February 2009, however, a power putsch sparked by the defections of three state assemblymen saw Nizar’s government toppled from the state’s helm.

“Now, our estimate is that PR will be positively looking at 38 seats... 18 from DAP, comfortably 10 from PAS and another 10 from PKR,” said Nizar, who is said to be the likely choice for mentri besar candidate should PR win the next polls.

Nizar, an engineer by training, will not be defending his Bukit Gantang parliamentary seat in Election 2013 and may move from Pasir Panjang to the Changkat Jering state seat.

Changkat Jering, a state seat in the Bukit Gantang parliamentary constituency, is currently held by Capt (Rtd) Mohd Osman Mohd Jailu, who was one of the three PR assemblymen whose defections caused the fall of the Perak PR government.

In Election 2008, Nizar beat MIC’s Dr S. Vasan for the Pasir Panjang state seat by 4,474 votes, scoring 11,994 votes against the latter’s 7,520 votes.

Nizar contested in the Bukit Gantang by-election in April 2009, the height of the year-long constitutional impasse that followed Perak PR’s fall, and earned a 2,789-vote majority against Umno’s Ismail Safian when he polled 21,860 votes.