PH candidate confident of securing Malay votes in Pulai

 

Amanah’s Suhaizan Kaiat said he is concerned over the fact that most of the non-Malay voters are based in Johor Bahru and Singapore. (Bernama pic)

PULAI: The Pakatan Harapan (PH) candidate for the Pulai by-election is confident he will gain the support of Malay voters as the coalition has done its work with the local community since 2018.

Suhaizan Kaiat said trying to capture the hearts of the Malay community here is not something that can be done in just two weeks.

“You have to have had a strong relationship with them from early on.

“I believe we (PH) in Pulai have a good relationship with the Malay voters since 2018 when Salahuddin Ayub first won the seat,” he told FMT.

He added that after the Amanah deputy president won the seat in the 14th general election (GE14), he had built up a good relationship with the Malays.

Ads by Kiosked

Salahuddin, who died on July 23 after suffering a brain haemorrhage, defeated three-term Pulai MP Nur Jazlan Mohamed of Barisan Nasional (BN) with a 28,924 majority in GE14 and retained the seat by defeating the same BN candidate in GE15 last November by an even bigger margin.

However, Suhaizan said he could not estimate the percentage of votes that could be gained from the Malay voters in the by-election tomorrow but hoped it will be better compared with before.

Pulai is a mixed seat, with Malays making up 44.18% of the total 166,653 registered voters, followed by the Chinese (40.46%), Indians (12.31%), and other ethnicities (3.06%).

The seat comprises the Kempas and Perling state seats.

On securing the non-Malay votes, Suhaizan said his main concern is that most of them do not reside here but are based in and around Johor Bahru.

“Also, we are concerned that those (non-Malays) working in Singapore amount to about 30% of the voters.

Ads by Kiosked

“However, there are two groups among those working in Singapore. One group resides there while the other travels daily,” he said.

Suhaizan added that he spoke with home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail to ensure those residing in Singapore could return to vote in the by-election.

“We have discussed with Saifuddin to open more immigration counters at the border to allow cars to enter smoothly.

“Based on our survey, the response from those working in Singapore is great and we expect them to come back and vote,” Suhaizan said.

Suhaizan faces Zulkifli Jaafar of Perikatan Nasional (PN) and independent candidate Samsudin Fauzi in the Pulai by-election. - FMT