The by-election for Permatang Pasir state seat in Penang will be held on the Aug 25 as per the announcement by EC today. The Permatang Pasir state seat is one of three seats in PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim's Permatang Pauh parliamentary constituency and it is PAS sole representative in Penang.
Permatang Pasir by-election is the 8th by-election after the March 2008 GE. BN lost all the by elections in the peninsular Malaysia and hence, we expect to see some intense campaigns by both Umno and PAS. Even though the seat is within the Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat which is held by the PKR's defecto leader, Anwar Ibrahim, one should not under estimate BN in their chances of winning the Permatang Pasir seat. The Manek Urai by-election last month indicated that there is no such thing as safe seat for any party.
Looking at the composition of the electorate in Permatang Pasir. This is a good opportunity for the DAP lead Penang government to gauge the support from the electorate, especially from the Malay. I will foresee that the Kampung Buah Pala saga will drain away some Indian votes (less than 2% of the voters are Indian). There are about 20K voters in the constituency where the Malay make up of 72% and the Chinese make up of 26% of the total electorate.
It is likely that the by-election is a straight fight between PAS and Umno, independent candidates are irrelevant in the current political climate. As I said, Umno will certainly go all out to win this by-election after they ‘almost’ win the Manek Urai by-election. There will be more dirty tactics from Umno this time as they want to win their first by-election at any cost in the peninsular Malaysia in order to save Najib’s face.
Lately, we witnessed how Umno playing up racial issues in the death of DAP’s political aide Teoh Beng Hock, Selangor beer sales regulatory, DAP’s Anthony Loke who was criticised of "menghina" Islam/Sultan and the article by Mohd Ridhuan Tee (The chinese muslim who criticised Chinese in Utusan Malaysia).
I won’t be surprised; the jobless of Pemuda Umno head, KJ will start to spread racial hatred for his political gain since he hasn't done anything "big" after taking over the leadership of the youth wing. Spreading hatred is something that he is good at.
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