Voter interest soars as PN election gimmick takes wings

 

A group of PAS members from Gerik rode five hours to see the plane.

ALOR SETAR: Interest in Perikatan Nasional appears to have soared after a replica of a Boeing 737 aircraft painted in the coalition’s colours “landed” in a village in Sik.

The plane is attracting so much attention that villagers in the area are helping to control traffic and guiding cars to a makeshift car park.

Among the visitors was a group of 35 PAS members who rode their motorcycles for five hours from Gerik, Perak, to Sik. A group member, Ibrahim Ahmad, 46, said they had seen a TikTok posting about the plane and decided to make the trip overnight.

Free food was provided for visitors at a small pondok nearby, and many people posed for photos by the replica aircraft and dropped their spare change in donation boxes in support of the PAS general election campaign.

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The plane was built by PAS members four years ago and painted in PAS livery. It is drawing in the crowds again after being repainted in PN blue.

A flight of stairs takes visitors into a cabin with a ceiling fan, a chandelier and straw mats. A mural of a river and a rainforest adorn one side of the cabin walls, while the other side features cartoon characters.

Visitors in the replica aeroplane at Kampung Batu Besar, Sik.

PAS member and site supervisor Mat Piah Hat, 51, said the plane was built for the 2018 general election campaign. The committee decided to repaint it to mark the party’s cooperation with PN.

“About 10 of us painted the plane. It took us five days and five nights to paint it. It was a community effort.”

Mat said the construction of the plane was made possible through donations from a businessman who also allowed the plane to be parked on his lawn.

He said PAS members had in the past also built a helicopter out of bamboo and decorated it with PAS livery.

Mat said the aircraft symbolised the future of PAS, in which the party would one day soar to greater heights and run the government.

A local villager who wanted to be known as Razif said their kampung was now “the landmark of Sik”, despite it being 12km away from the town centre.

“When I tell people I’m from Sik, they scratch their heads. When I say I’m from the village where that PAS aeroplane is, all of them know,” he said. - FMT