Unless MCA buck up ....

... the winning majority for BN in Tenang won't be 5,000.

When UMNO Deputy President Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin expressed his wish to see such majority, when he announced the candidate for BN last week, there were more out of confidence for the solid Malay votes of about 47%.

To achieve a majority of 5,000, that is equivalent to one third majority for the nearly 15,000 voters, Malay votes will not be enough. Chinese make-up about 39% of voters and Indian about 12%.

The big hurdle lies with MCA Labis.

The win is assured but BN needs to see a significant increase in majority from the 2008 tsunami of 2,492. Otherwise, there is no sufficient momentum to call for a General Election that is likely to coincide with the Sarawak State General Election.

Without the late Dato Sulaiman Taha as Division Head, the UMNO Division seemed to be struggling to get their act together.

The Johor Menteri Besar, Dato Gani Osman who is Election Director and acting Division head for a while is not grasping his role to direct the Division's election machinery.

He initially claimed the State UMNO is strong enough but later realised he needs help from outside. The other state UMNO machinery is only beginning to trickle in.

The problem has got little to do with so-called sabotage by the 15 in the list rejected by UMNO leadership.

Being a traditional UMNO state, they will be able to ward off attack on Felda and hold on to the Malay block.

On the Indian side, only PPP seem to be consistently involve with the Indian voters. The local MIC is as good as dysfunctional, but claim to represent Indian interest in the area.

The problem is allocation and assitance tak turun and there is dissatisfaction in the community. The competition between the three Indian political parties of MIC, PPP and IPF is not making things simple.

Despite MIC's Murugiah triggered Interlok issue that had been manipulated by once unsupportive opposition in Tenang, the majority Indian support remain for BN. There are Indian anti MIC but BN volunteers lending help for the campaign effort.

The Chinese is the tricky bit here.
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As a traditional MCA area, one would have thought support would remain to save face for MCA since the MCA President Dato Dr Chua Soi Lek's former Parliamentary seat is Labis and his replacement is his own son.

Soi Lek had been doing pre-election visits to traditional local power brokers and Chinese schools. His son has been acknowledged as a hard working MP. Early commitment points to a more than 5,000 majority.

But no one knows that Soi Lek has problems with local popular boy and Bekok State Assembleymen, Tan Kok Hong.

He was banned to make a return to campaign for the Tenang by-election. In due time.

The MCA branch has problems facing up to their weakness. When UMNO merely mentioned of the need to work together to regain three peti undi area, MCA grew hypersensitive to three ballot boxes belong them.

Such mentioning of any loss of ballot box held by MCA is seen as unfriendly.

The ceramah held by DAP started with a couple of people as audience but last night it has grown to few hundred. If left unchecked, it could be the repeat of Sibu.

In the meanwhile, UMNO Youth had spewed racist remark towards the ceramah by Lim Guan Eng. These will be spinned nationwide.

courtesy of Another Brick in the Wall