Johari unfazed by Dr M campaigning at Titiwangsa

GE14 |Caretaker second finance minister Johari Abdul Ghani (above) is not worried about Pakatan Harapan chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad's appearance in his Titiwangsa constituency last night for a mega-ceramah by Pakatan Harapan.

"I am unfazed because the crowd size was not more than 3,000 in spite of that kind of heavyweight coming to my area," he said when contacted.

According to him, a large portion of the crowd were Chinese who hailed from other constituencies nearby including Bukit Bintang, Cheras, Wangsa Maju, Batu and Pandan.

As for the Malay crowd, he said they were either brought in by the ceramah organiser or were PKR "cheerleaders".

He said he drew this conclusion after sending his team members to interview about 100 people who attended the event.

"Every 10 people there we asked, hardly one or two were from Titiwangsa. None of the crowd was from Desa Pandan," he said.

Malaysiakini reported that some 1,500 attended the Mahathir event last night under the rain. The crowd were in high spirits and had chanted "Long Live Tun".

Despite appearing to be indifferent, Johari's tweet, however, showed that he had invited his constituents for high tea at Block B Desa Pandan four hours before Mahathir's ceramah.

Asked about this, Johari said, "I had a full crowd at this programme. All locals."

Titiwangsa is the only seat Bersatu is contesting in Kuala Lumpur.

Johari, who is defending this seat, is being challenged by Harapan's Rina Mohd Harun and PAS' Mohamad Noor Mohamad.

In 2013, Johari, an auditor-turned politician, won the seat by a razor-thin majority of 866.

Titiwangsa has 61,598 voters of which 72 percent are Malay, 17 percent Chinese and nine percent Indian.- Mkini