Tide turning against Pakatan

With five more days to polling, the battle of Tenang is moving in favour of BN.

LABIS: PAS appears to be losing ground to the Barisan Nasional (BN) as the latter makes heavy inroads into Malay-majority areas.

The campaign is entering the last few laps and although PAS still has a lot of catching-up to do, it is in high spirits. The Islamist party and its allies – PKR and DAP – are working hard to get the voters to come onboard the Pakatan Rakyat train.

So far, there is no mad rush to the loose coalition. The Felda settlers are comfortable with the BN because the ruling party has promised to take care of their welfare, including looking into land issues and building better infrastructure.

PAS has no goodies to offer but it is going to great lengths to sway the young settlers. Basically, its message is: there is more to life than toiling in plantations, which also means their future is brighter under the moon than under the keris.

For DAP and PKR, the Tenang contest is just a platform for them to disseminate information on national issues. They feel that although the young voters are Internent-savvy, they possess little knowledge on current developments in the country.

The Pakatan partners know the going is tough but if defeat is staring at them, they want to make sure the margin of victory for BN’s candidate Azahar Ibrahim is reduced. They can then claim a moral victory of sorts.

Meanwhile, Labis is a hive of activity. MCA and DAP crusaders are battling toe-to-toe for the Chinese vote bank. Amidst a sea of flags, banners and posters depicting the symbols of the respective parties, rival speakers have set up small venues to pound home their message to the curious crowd.

Sometimes the mood in the Pakatan camp is gloomy just like the weather. On the fourth day, an overcast sky somewhat dampened its spirits as though presaging a dreadful fate for its candidate Normala Sudirman.

But the show must go on. Both rivals continue to hit the road in an all-out drive to reach as many voters as possible. Every vote counts.

With five more days to polling, the picture that emerged is that PAS is struggling to breach the BN defence. It may not even secure the votes it obtained in 2008, which was 3,875. -FMT