PPP sets its sight high on Cameron Highlands

M Kayveas is hoping that Umno will help him get back the parliamentary seat.

TAIPING: After the humilating defeat in the last general election, Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) president M Kayveas is setting his sights high. He wants the parliamentary seat of Cameron Highlands or the remote seat of Gerik.

In the 2008 general election, he lost his Taiping seat to DAP’s Nga Kor Ming. After losing so badly there were allegations of betrayal and back-stabbing by Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties.

The DAP won the seat with a huge majority of 11,298 votes.

A BN source told FMT today that Kayveas has good relationship with the Umno top leaders and is confident of getting either the Umno seat of Gerik or Cameron Highlands (held by MIC) where he was born.

The present Gerakan Gerik MP Tan Lian Hoe has fallen out of favour with Umno when she called the Malays “pendatang” in response to a Malay leader who had allegedly called both the Indians and Chinese as “pendatang”.

The Perak Umno leaders feel that Tan was not grateful for the Malay voter support she received in 2008 and they want her out of Gerik in the next general election.

Because of the war of words between the state Umno and Gerakan, Tan is considered a liability. But Tan, who is also the party’s national Wanita chief, is not getting out of politics. She has set her sight on Taiping , a former Gerakan stronghold.

According to the BN source, former MIC party boss S Samy Vellu, who had a long-running battle with Kayveas, was the villain who had allegedly staged the downfall of the PPP leader in the Taiping seat in 2008.

MIC under a spotlight

During the Perak BN convention in Lumut in March, Kayveas did not mince words and took the BN component parties to task, especially MIC for attacking him and his party during the last general election.

The BN source said that the PPP leader’s first choice has always been Cameron Highlands where he was born and had his early childhood and has good grassroots support.

Kayveas had wanted the Cameron Highlands seat in 2008, but MIC was also eyeing it and Kayveas had to settle for the Taiping seat.

At present, MIC vice-president SK Devamany is the Cameron Highlands MP after defeating the DAP candidate J Applasamy by a majority of 3,117 votes in 2008.

According to the BN source, Devamany has now lost favour with the Cameron Highlands Umno division leaders who are unhappy with him as he has not been effectively servicing the constituency.

It has also been speculated that Devamany may also not be fielded by MIC in this parliamentary constituency as MIC chief G Palanivel is considering strengthening his position in the party by fielding his own supporters to replace Samy Vellu’s men.