Gombak Umno: Without Dr M lending a hand, Azmin faces uphill task

 

With Dr Mahathir Mohamad no longer in Bersatu, incumbent Gombak MP Azmin Ali might struggle in the forthcoming 15th general election (GE15), said Gombak Umno’s division chief.

Megat Zulkarnain Omardin believes that mainly due to the “Mahathir factor”, Bersatu supreme council member Azmin (above, right) managed to retain his seat with a much bigger majority in the 14th general election in 2018.

He said this made many Gombak voters swing to support Pakatan Harapan then.

Contrary to PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli saying Mahathir (above, left) did not help Harapan to win Malay votes, Megat Zulkarnain said many Gombak voters had swung from BN to support Mahathir’s allies.

In 2018, the constituency was made up of 77 percent Malay voters, 11 percent Chinese voters, 11 percent Indian voters and two percent voters of other ethnicities.

“To be honest, Mahathir has a quite big support base in Gombak, because this is an urban seat. So the swing vote happened because of Tun. I do not deny this fact.

“I have met many voters after the 14th general election and found that the majority of those who swung to give their support to Harapan then was because Tun was with the coalition then.

“And I believe these votes would no longer go to one single individual (in GE15)," the Umno leader told Malaysiakini.

'Azmin losing PKR supporters too'

Azmin, who was with PKR, first won the Gombak seat in 2008 when he defeated BN candidate Said Anuar Said Ahmad with a majority of 6,867 votes.

In the 2013 general election, he managed to retain the seat albeit with a slightly reduced majority of 4,734, before recording a massive victory in the 14th general election in 2018, where he secured 53 percent of total votes to record a majority of 48,721 votes.

All three times, the senior minister in charge of the Economic Cluster won in Gombak on a PKR ticket.

Gombak Umno division chief Megat Zulkarnain Omardin

In February 2020, Azmin left the party during a political coup dubbed the Sheraton Move, which caused the collapse of the Harapan federal government. He joined Bersatu in August of that year.

Azmin is expected to defend the Gombak seat, where he will be facing PKR’s Amirudin Shari, who is the Selangor menteri besar and is known as Azmin’s former protege in PKR.

Megat Zulkarnain said the division hopes voters will choose BN based on its services to the rakyat.

He also opined that there is a slightly better chance for Umno and BN at the seat this time around, given that Azmin is now facing his former party and would no longer enjoy the support of Harapan supporters.

“We believe that the 26,000 votes BN received in 2018 would remain with BN. This is the worst-case scenario.

“It can’t be worse than that, because there is no general election that is worse for BN (other than 2018).” - Mkini