Ex-Orang Asli top cop may arrest Harapan's march to victory

CAMERON POLLS | In 2015, Ramli Mohd Noor became the highest ranking Orang Asli police officer in the nation’s history.

And now speculation is rife that BN might entrust the former assistant commissioner with the task of retaining the coalition's Cameron Highlands seat in the Jan 26 by-election.

Furthermore, Ramli is a local from the Semai tribe, which forms the bulk of the 22 percent of Orang Asli voters in the parliament seat.

Ramli started his career as a probationary inspector before rising up the ranks. He had also served as the Penang Commercial Crime Department chief.

He holds a Masters in Public Administration from the University of East London.

In an interview with NST in 2015, Ramli revealed that he was a second generation police officer and his son was a police officer as well.

His father, Mohd Nor Abdullah, was a founding member of Senoi Praaq, a jungle fighting force now part of the General Operations Force.

Fielding Ramli could hurt Pakatan Harapan's chances of capturing the seat as he could pull in both the Malay-Muslim, including PAS supporters, and Orang Asli votes.

At 34 percent, Malay-Muslims make up the majority of the registered voters in Cameron Highlands.

The Orang Asli are the majority in nine of the 29 voting districts. In the last general election, the community voted for BN in overwhelming numbers.

The results also showed that the Malay voters were split between BN and PAS, albeit slightly more towards BN.

The dark blue regions denote the voting districts in Cameron Highlands where the Orang Asli community make up more than 90 percent of the electorate. Red and green regions denote voting districts won by Pakatan Harapan and PAS respectively. The rest were won by BN.

2

So far, other names being suggested as the BN candidate are Umno acting president Mohamad Hasan and Pahang Menteri Besar Wan Rosdy Wan Ismail.

Wan Rosdy is also the Jelai assemblyperson. Jelai is one of two state constituencies which makes up the Cameron Highlands parliamentary constituency, with the other being Tanah Rata.

Yesterday, Malaysiakini reported that MIC has decided not to contest in Cameron Highlands, which is the party's traditional seat.

The Umno supreme council is scheduled to meet tonight to discuss the candidate issue. BN would make an official announcement tomorrow.

In the last general election, MIC vice-president C Sivarraajh won the Cameron Highlands seat in a five-way tussle, edging DAP's M Manogaran with a margin of about 600 votes.

Last November, the Election Court nullified the results due to the commission of corrupt practices and ruled that a by-election be held.

Harapan has named Manogaran as its candidate.

 -Mkini