Kelantan DAP gears up for 'mission impossible'

 

INTERVIEW | DAP may have emerged as one of the parties with the most lawmakers, but there are still two states where they have never won a seat - Terengganu and Kelantan.

However, the party is still active in both regions, slowly preparing for its first milestone.

In a recent interview with Malaysiakini, Kelantan DAP chairperson Azaha Abd Rani viewed the upcoming state elections with cautious optimism and suggested it would take novel approaches for Pakatan Harapan to make a dent in the PAS stronghold.

One suggestion by Azaha was for Harapan to adopt BN's logo during the Kelantan polls, noting that BN was the stronger of the two coalitions there.

“I am confident that DAP supporters will accept this (proposal) and understand that there will be no problem for Harapan candidates, including DAP, to use the BN logo,” he said.

Over the past two decades, DAP has fielded only one candidate in Kelantan - Nasir Dollah for the Galas state assembly seat in 2018, who won just enough votes to keep his deposit.

In the upcoming state election, Harapan will be starting on the back foot. In 2018, the coalition won only 12.3 percent of the popular vote in the state. That year, Harapan failed to win a single seat in the Kelantan legislative assembly, down from two seats previously.

During the following parliamentary election in 2022, the proportion of Harapan’s popular vote in the state dropped further to just 8.8 percent.

Now that Harapan is in a pact with BN, Azaha was optimistic that the state opposition would finally be able to pose a credible challenge to PAS, due to a consolidation of votes.

“Our goal is to defeat PAS which has been in power for 33 years in Kelantan. DAP, as a component of Harapan, will definitely help our new partner BN.

“There is unity at all levels - from the leadership down to the grassroots,” he said.

Azaha believed that non-Malay voters in Kelantan will back the Harapan and BN pact - which would give them the edge over Perikatan Nasional (PN).

“We must remember the lessons from the November 2022 elections. When the votes are split, it causes losses, such as how BN lost by thin margins in Gua Musang,” he said.

According to OpenDOSM’s Kawasanku website, Kelantan is primarily dominated by bumiputera (96.6 percent).

The main challenges, said Azaha, were PN’s campaign narrative which urged voters to reject BN because of the latter’s alliance with DAP, and the reluctance of some Umno supporters to accept the new pact.

“Our opponents are making this an issue... we need to communicate our views strategically to react to this,” he said.

Azaha could not disclose if DAP were to field any candidates for the upcoming election in Kelantan, saying negotiations were still ongoing.

So far, negotiations have resulted in BN being allocated the right to field 31 candidates while the balance of 14 would go to Harapan.

Sources told Malaysiakini that the 14 include Kota Lama - the state constituency in which PN performed the poorest during the 2022 parliamentary elections. - Mkini