Ramkarpal under pressure

Many feel Ramkarpal will win hands down but will he be able to equate or better his late father's majority in the Bukit Gelugor by-election?

COMMENT

GEORGE TOWN: Following a 13-day by-election campaign, Bukit Gelugor voters would decide tomorrow, Sunday May 25, on who will be their next member of Parliament.

According to the Election Commission’s data, Bukit Gelugor has 82,431 voters comprising 61,267 or 74.33% Chinese, 11,913 or 14.46% Malays, 8,848 or 10.73% Indians and 403 or 0.49% others.

Some 148 early voters have already cast their votes in four stations on Wednesday.

The others would cast their ballot papers in 17 polling stations tomorrow.

Bukit Gelugor by-election is being held following the tragic death of incumbent DAP MP Karpal Singh in a fatal highway accident near Kampar, Perak in the wee hours of April 17.

On paper, it looks like a straight forward win for DAP candidate Ramkarpal Singh Deo, the third son of the late Karpal but the electoral debutant faces a different challenge though.

This time around, the DAP is not facing its traditional Barisan Nasional (BN) rival candidate from MCA which has opted out from the contest.

Ramkarpal, 38, is instead being challenged by Parti Cinta Malaysia vice-president Huan Cheng Guan and independents Nabi Bux Mohamed Nabi Abd Sathar, 63, and lawyer Abu Backer Sidek Mohamad Zan, 46, in a four-cornered battle.

Due to BN’s absence, Ramkarpal seems to be under pressure to either match or better his father’s previous massive majority win in the 2013 general election.

The late Karpal polled 55,839 votes to score a stunning majority victory of 41,778 votes against BN candidate Teh Beng Yeam, who garnered 14,061 votes in the 13th General Election.

When the DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng announced his candidature on May 10, Ramkarpal expressed confidence that he can repeat his father’s majority with strong coordination, commitment and hard work among all Pakatan Rakyat allies.

Fear of low voter turnout

But after 13 days of campaigning, a weary Ramkarpal is wary about a low voters’ turnout, dampening his desire for a big win.

The DAP beams with confidence of a win,but its election team acknowledges that if any of Ramkarpal’s opponents were to be able to keep their election deposit, it would be a massive blow to the party’s pride and ego, especially to Chief Minister Lim.

For a candidate to keep his deposit, the person must garner 12% of vote cast on polling day.

Sensing this, DAP is wooing Bukit Gelugor voters living outside to return to vote apart from aggressively urging local residents to turn out in full force to vote for Ramkarpal for a big win.

A random check shows that DAP’s Rocket symbol may not get the Malay and Indian votes that he expects for a big win.

Some observers said Huan may take the lion’s share of Malay and Indian votes, while chipping away sizeable Chinese votes.

However, Huan, who uses PCM symbol of Malaysians, did not want to be indulged in a guessing game.

“We will know when the ballot boxes are opened and votes counted.

“It’s difficult to predict. Bukit Gelugor is too big,” said Huan, who only hopes for constituents to save his deposit.

Bukit Gelugor’s state constituencies of Seri Delima, Paya Terubong and Air Itam are all DAP seats.

Some 22.6% Seri Delima’s 23,891 voters are Malays, who may vote for Ramkarpal’s opponents, especially Huan.

“Celaka” may hurt

Campaigns were under way in the past few days to ask Malays to reject Ramkarpal following Seri Delima assemblyman RSN Rayer’s perceived insult on Umno, as he called them “celaka” during Tuesday’s assembly session.

That triggered an ugly ruckus as some demonstrators, led by state Umno Youth, gate crashed and stormed into the Assembly meeting hall on Wednesday.

Although many agreed that the demonstrators should not have breached the sanctity of the August House, they equally fired Rayer for causing the whole fracas.

Some observers claimed Rayer’s comment could be a political entrapment to anger Umno and Malays, and woo the Chinese and Indians.

“Perhaps things were not going on well as expected by DAP among non-Malay voters.

“It may be an electoral trick to stir sentiments and fish in trouble waters.

“But only the results would show whether it worked,” said an observer.

Ramkarpal pressured to equate Karpal’s achievements

Since the start, political greenhorn Ramkarpal’s campaign has rode on his father Karpal’s legacy to woo voters, especially the Chinese.

Karpal has never lost in Bukit Gelugor, be it when it was a state constituency under Jelutong federal seat or when it was elevated to a parliamentary seat prior to the 2004 general election.

So Ramkarpal faces another task of safekeeping his family’s traditional safe seat.

His manifesto launched late this week, however has nothing to shout about.

Instead it drew flak from Huan, who claimed it actually mirrored his own manifesto launched early last week.

The sight of Ramkarpal soldiering on his feet across the constituency to have a hand shake with all constituents and passing them copies of his campaign materials hints that things are not going well as anticipated.

Normally the battle hardened DAP would rely heavily on rallies, where anti-BN rhetoric bashing would take centre stage to woo voters, not on door-to-door or man-to-man campaign.

Ramkarpal acknowledged that there were impregnable grey areas for DAP.

“But it’s normal to have such areas. Not everyone in a constituency would vote for you,” he told FMT during his campaign trail.

Huan has kept his campaign strictly on meeting people on the ground and having meetings with community organisations and leaders.

Being a seasoned politician, Huan has so far received warm welcome from many Chinese community leaders who know him personally since his days in Gerakan.

Huan was once Gerakan vice-president and Batu Kawan MP.

Huan’s personal link with local BN leaders has helped him tremendously in his campaign to reach out to voters.

Independents’ antics

Between the independents, Nabi Bux is confident of securing at least 70% Malay votes and predicted if he could secure all Malay votes and some 20% – 30% Chinese and Indian votes, he can upset the odds to win.

But that seems to be more of a dream than reality.

Using the theme ‘hudud in Penang by 2020′, he has been working hard to woo voters.

Using a small lorry as his campaign vehicle, he has been giving speeches and singing Hindi songs to attract their attention.

Nevertheless, the dull election campaign saw the antics of the other independent candidate Abu Backer, a lawyer by profession.

Unlike other serious looking candidates, Abu Backer added much needed colour and sense of humour by using unconventional methods for his campaign such as a caravan towed by a truck and a horse.

He has been moving around with his caravan throughout the constituency speaking in three languages – Malay, English and local Chinese dialect Hokkien by using a loud speaker.

He kick-started his campaign by having press meets in a posh city hotel before going to the ground to meet voters.

Abu Backer, whose election symbol is a ‘head down’ horse also caused a dramatic stir last week when he collapsed under the chauffeur driven official car of Chief Minister Lim at the Assembly House gate.

He was later rushed in an ambulance to the Penang Hospital.

He also had a tiff with the local media, boasting that he would ditch local journalists for international media coverage.

Later he apologised for his outburst.

Some unhappy with Ramkarpal

The campaign so far has had minor incidents of mischief as vandals splashed red paint on some of Huan’s billboards and a number of election banners of other candidates being torn down.

Many voters anticipate a Ramkarpal’s victory and some even indicated that they would not come out to vote as the result was a foregone conclusion.

Some Chinese voters were however unhappy that DAP picked Ramkarpal as the candidate.

They claimed that “there were many more capable candidates waiting for years without a seat to contest.”

There were a few who hinted that they may vote for Huan in protest.

Although Ramkarpal should win the contest, observers predicted that Huan can muster some 12% – 15% votes to save his election deposit, unlike the independent candidates.

By 9pm Sunday, the candidates will know the people’s verdict which will be announced in Dewan Sri Pinang by the Election Commission.