KULIM – Pakatan Harapan (PH) is intent on promoting a narrative of hope, unity and future progress to counter the rhetoric related to race and religion – which its main rival Perikatan Nasional (PN) is alleged to be using in the Padang Serai parliamentary by-election.
PH candidate Mohamad Sofee Razak said that the coalition led by its chairman Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who is the newly minted prime minister, will not take it lying down when political opponents resort to using slander and lies to confuse local voters.
“Our narrative of hope, unity and progress has a better bet of surviving this pandemic of lies and aggression. People will get fed up when PN only peddles race and religion without offering solutions to their woes,” said Sofee, the Kedah PKR secretary.
“We will approach the voters with a better explanation of what has happened to the country. Our clarification to the lies that others spread must be concrete and we will also highlight to the young how they can participate in nation building.”
No one would be left behind in the quest to revive Malaysia as a progressive nation, said Sofee in an interview.
As for campaign strategy, Sofee, who is a lawyer, said that the approach would be to reach out to all voting segments.
On a view that the tactic to bring up race and religion had possibly worked in garnering voter support in Kedah – which saw PN winning 13 of the 15 parliamentary seats in the state in the 15th general election (GE15) – Sofee replied that PH will not be distracted by the matter.
It will continue offering solutions to the woes faced by the community here, he said.
“We will ensure that their requests for public amenities and quality education as well as other needs are met.
“We will continue with the good work of (former Padang Serai MP) M. Karupaiya who understood what the constituents want,” he said, referring to his PKR colleague who was PH’s candidate for the constituency.
Karupaiya died on November 16, three days before polling was scheduled for GE15.
His death led to the Election Commission deferring the election for the constituency to December 7.
Pakatan to safeguard special position of Malays
PN chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had urged the public against voting for PH during the election campaigning, labelling the coalition as a “big danger”.
He suggested that Christians are supposedly working in cahoots with a group of Jews to promote the Christianisation of Malaysia, and that PH will aid them in the event of victory.
Muhyiddin later issued a statement saying his comments were taken out of context, with a video of his speech being selectively edited to create a false narrative against him.
Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang, president of PAS, a PN component, has also accused DAP of spreading Islamophobic narratives, labelling the party as “creedless and immoral” and accusing it of “showing its true colours” for the sake of its own political expediency.
On social media platform TikTok, supporters allegedly identified to be from a certain coalition have also previously spread hate propaganda, including disinformation and threats related to the May 13, 1969 racial riots.
Police announced yesterday that an investigation had been initiated on PAS’ Baling MP Hassan Saad over his allegations of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim being an Israeli agent.
Sofee stressed that PH will ensure that the special rights of the Malays under the federal constitution are not compromised, contrary to the racial fears being allegedly stoked by its detractors.
PN candidate former PKR man
Sofee is up against Datuk Azman Nasrudin (PN), a Kedah state executive councillor and Lunas assemblyman, who is a favourite to wrest the seat.
Azman has been accused of being a traitor as he had won the Lunas seat under PKR in the general election of 2018. Azman and Sidam assemblyman Dr Robert Ling Kui Ee quit PKR to join Bersatu in 2020.
Since then, PAS, Bersatu and Gerakan have formed the nucleus of PN.
Despite a degree of political fatigue setting in the working-class constituency here, political parties are expecting a good turnout when voting begins.
Padang Serai has 133,767 eligible voters, with 81,230 of them in the Lunas state constituency, and the remaining 52,546 are voters in Merbau Pulas, the only other state constituency in Padang Serai.
In terms of ethnicity, 70.11% are Bumiputera. 15.11% are Indians, while 14.16% are Chinese. Others account for 0.52% in the largely blue-collar working-class area.
Sofee and Azman are facing a six-cornered fight for Padang Serai.
Other contenders are Datuk Sivarraajh Chandran (BN), Hamzah Abdul Rahman (Pejuang), Mohd Bakhri Hashim (Warisan), and independent Sreanandha Rao. – The Vibes, November 30, 2022
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