Will BN reclaim Lumut after Chinese-majority Sitiawan taken out?

GE14 | Lumut has the largest Royal Malaysian Navy base in the country with 17 percent army votes of its total voters.

In last general election, it was a mixed seat with 51 percent Malay and 35 percent Chinese and PKR won the parliamentary seat for the first time with Chinese voters playing a decisive role.

Now, it has become a super Malay-majority constituency after Sitiawan (now known as Astaka), a state seat with 74 percent Chinese voters, was moved out to Beruas parliamentary seat after the redelineation exercise.

Following this, the Malay voters of Lumut have now increased sharply from 51 percent to 72 percent and Chinese voters decreased from 35 percent to 15 percent, while Indian voters stand at 11 percent, down by just one percent.

In the last GE, Lumut had three state seats - Sitiawan, Pangkor and Pasir Panjang. At the time, the super Chinese-majority seat Sitiawan was won by DAP with 11,820 majority votes or 41 percent, while Pangkor and Pasir Panjang, which had 70 percent and 75 percent of Malay voters respectively, were taken by Umno.

With Sitiawan out, Lumut is now only left with two state seats, Pangkor and Pasir Panjang, both Malay-majority.

As a result, the Malays and army votes have become the key factor in winning Lumut.

70pct of army voted BN in GE13

Pakatan Harapan has fielded Federal Territories Amanah chairperson Hatta Ramli to defend Lumut against BN's caretaker Perak menteri besar Zambry Abd Kadir and PAS' Mohammed Zambri Ibrahim.

Zambry is also a three-term Pangkor assemblyperson and he will be defending the state seat.

Harapan is now facing bigger challenges to defend Lumut when it has become a super Malay-majority seat. 

In Pangkor, Zambry defeated PKR with 5124-majority votes or 21.5 percent, while in Pasir Panjang, Umno defeated PAS with 304 or 0.8 percent marginal votes.

Lumut has 11,352 army votes where 10,357 votes (91 percent) are under Pangkor.

In the last GE, more than 70 percent army voters in Pangkor voted for BN. For example, in the biggest army polling district - Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Pangkalan TLDM Lumut - 7,864 voters or 76 percent voted for BN, while 2,397 (23.1 percent) voted for PKR.

The army voters in Pangkor make up 52 percent of the total voters while Pasir Panjang only has few hundred army votes.

Thus, PKR can only defend Lumut with an "Army Tsunami" in Pangkor or its Malay votes in Pasir Panjang increase sharply.

While BN only needs to hold steady army and Malay votes in Pangkor and maintain half of the Malay votes in Pasir Panjang to win back the Lumut.

Where would army votes go this time?

Yesterday was early voting and Malaysiakini interviewed few voters outside the Navy base camp and found that soldiers generally are satisfied with the welfare provided by the caretaker government.

Although some were dissatisfied with GST and heavy cost of living, they still tend to support the government.

One of the soldiers who stays with wife and five children outside the camp told Malaysiakini that he likes the stable life and can accept the caretaker government.

He said although the salaries of military personnel are not higher than other professions, he is satisfied with the welfare of soldiers, such as medicine or a buying car.

"The current (caretaker) government is good, I don't think it has any problem. Armies have our own hospital and government is taking good care of our welfare. This is a stable job with stable income with a pension after retirement," he said after casting his vote.

Another army who refused to be named said he is still thinking about who he should vote for.

He said he may vote for the opposition for the parliamentary seat and BN for the state seat. 

"Everyone has their own opinion. Harapan and BN also have their own manifesto with good and bad sides," he added.

Another army officer said although opposition is expecting a Malay tsunami, he opined that many in Lumut are confidence with BN.

"We saw BN gave us many benefits, subsidies and the naval ship equipment, so why should we change the government?" he asked.

Nevertheless, he is discontented with some ministers who always make silly remarks, such as calling people to "leave the country if you don't like Malaysia", "don't go back to hometown if petrol is expensive", "cook yourself if food is expensive" and so on.

Pangkor villagers praise Zambry

On the candidates' background, Zamry and Hatta are not of military background but both are locals - Zamry born and grew up in Pangkor while Hatta in Pasir Panjang.

Two days ago, Zambry had a walkabout in Pangkor to canvass and there was a group of more than 60 people in BN uniform following him. Malaysiakini interviewed some and found many of them are local villagers.

The island is full of BN flags. The crowd and motorcycles accompanying Zambry have made his campaigning quite imposing.

Zambry is very familiar to island villagers. Among them is Shah, 26, a mother who has brought along two children in support of Zambry.

Shah (photo) praised Zambry for taking care of the villagers, always responded to the needs of the villagers and brought many developments to the island. 

"For the people of Pangkor, he is the best, he had brought many developments and I believe he will not neglect Pangkor even if he is elected as MP," she said.

Abdul Razak Omar, 45, and his wife Rohana Abdullah, 45, are both disabled but it did not stop them from following Zambry with a specially built motorcycle. 

When interviewed, he said that both of them are tailors and they helped sew the BN flags.

Most Zambry supporters are local villagers, but he is not ignoring the influence of locals who work outside the island and will be back to vote for the GE.

The flyers distributed by Zambry campaigning team urged the villagers to take polls seriously and not be influenced by wanderers who come back to vote.

"Wanderers return home for only a few days a year to stay on the island and they often bring in outside sentiments to the island and affect the result of the election.

"After the election, the wanderers will leave the island and would not know about the life and development of the island," the flyers read.

Locals complain of house prices, GST

Hatta is the incumbent Kuala Krai MP with two terms under his belt but he goes back to his hometown Lumut to contest due to party's arrangement.

On Thursday (May 3) night, he held a ceramah kelompok (group ceramah) in front of his ancestral home and around 100 villagers attended.

Hatta stressed on his local identity and also pointed out that only locals can understand the issues faced by Lumut residents.

Zul, a villager from Pasir Panjang opined that Zambry only focuses on Pangkor's development and seems to have neglected Pasir Panjang.

Zul is a government servant working at a public hospital.

He is also concerned about the high price of houses and hoped the government can build more affordable houses priced below RM100,000.

"GST is also burdening our life and my salary is not enough to cope. We want to change (the government)," Zul (photo) added.  

Another villager Mus, who stays in Kampung Pasir Panjang Laut, said Hatta is an experienced MP and very capable. 

"He often criticises the government's policies such as the ECRL and I believe he can compete with (caretaker) MB, the
(caretaker) MB only takes care of Pangkor," he said.

In the last GE, the retired navy first admiral cum PKR candidate Mohamad Imran Abd Hamid defeated MCA's Kong Cho Ha with 8,168 majority-votes. 

Lumut will be seen as a battle of  "locals vs locals" battle and whoever stands out may depend on its influence in Pangkor and
Pasir Panjang, also not forgetting the army votes. -Mkini