Wednesday 1 May 2013

Shifting grounds in Gelang Patah

DAP has stepped up their campaign in Gelang Patah following DS Najib Razak's visit to the constituency and other parts of Johor yesterday.

Tonight, the party's ceramah at Sutera Mall, Skudai recorded the biggest turn out, which I estimated at over 20,000 people.

I took a drive in the area and observed cars parked as far as three kilometer away from the site of the mammoth gathering.

As it were on previous DAP ceramah there, the crowd was overwhelmingly Chinese.

Families with children among them were seen walking the long distance from their cars to the site of the ceramah.


I didn't bother to stop as I think I know what the speakers are going to talk about. It's the usual BN bashing and whipping up of thinly-veiled racial sentiments.

If one is to judge from the attendance at the DAP ceramah, then the outcome of the election in Gelang Patah should be without any doubt - DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang will thrash BN's outgoing Johor Menteri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman.

Such outcome would mean that Najib's attempt to place Ghani's candidacy there as a symbol of Malaysian moderate political culture where race is not the definitive consideration in the choice of leadership should have failed.

Gelang Patah is after all a Chinese majority constituency and I believe no Malay had ever win in such a constituency.

Ghani, as usual was attending several small gatherings with voters in the constituency tonight. Among the places of the meetings were at a church where he expressed worries over the increasingly robust campaigning as polling day draws near. He apparently stills believes that his focused, yet low-key campaigning style should be the answer to such aggressive tactics.


Despite sayings to the contrary, based on my own experience, the number of people turning up at a ceramah is not really the best indicator of a party's strength. 

This is especially so in this instance as the crowd at the DAP ceramah is overwhelmingly from only one race. 

Do bear in mind that the ceramah of Pakatan prior to the 2008 general election were mostly attended by racially mixed crowd. This time, the Chinese may find that they will all be on their own going against the current.

By the way, if the number of people of ceramah is an indication of a party's strength, Pas which is a master at mustering such huge crowd at its ceramah would had sunk Umno a long time ago.


Despite all that, I honestly believe that Ghani's task at convincing especially the Chinese community in Gelang Patah to support him based primarily on his good track-record has become an increasingly steep uphill climb.

I am not saying that Ghani stands no chance at all, but it's a fact that the draw of ethnic identity in deciding the choice of who should represent the community is too alluring.

It is just the nature of Malaysian politics for now. Kit Siang knows this and is exploiting it to the hilt.

12 comments:

  1. The video of PR & Kit Siang speeches for tonite's Gelang Patah event was streamed live and also uploaded up to YouTube already. It's easily 50k crowd with huge donations still to be counted. Nowadays, crowd donations is good barometer of votes.
    It's a multiracial speakers line-up.

    All Johor voters can go and check out the content of the speeches! It's about change for a better Malaysia.

    No racial innuendos at all in the event despite UMNO's vicious ground racist campaigns and leaflets...

    UMNO black-ops are creating and distributing leaflets of so-called Kit Siang's words in Chow Kit during 11-13th May, 1969. Except he wasn't even in KL during that dark period of Malaysia.
    Kalau tanding, main bersih la...

    Anyway, as said earlier PKR & PAS will most benefit from surging Chinese votes as there are many mixed-seats in Johor. Most are contested by PKR/PAS. So if they are able to bring in sufficient Malays support, many UMNO seats will fall.

    Interesting times...

    ~ Kluang girl

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    1. The exceptionally huge crowd at the DAP ceramah in Sutera Mall last night was due to news earlier in the day of allegation that two Chinese female students of Southern College University had been molested by BN supporters at Najib's function the previous night. Words had been going around that students of the Chinese independent university college will demonstrate their anger over the alleged incident at the DAP ceramah.

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    2. Ah... Kluang girl ... playing so naive ....perasaan orang ramai perlu di bakar lama sebelum tiba2 meletup. Bila indication nak meletup sudah ada, si pembakar tak perlu tunggu lagi disitu. Kalau tunggu jugak, itu bodoh namanya.

      Bila dia tiada disitu pada hari kejadian, maka kebodohan yg dia tinggalkan akan dikutip oleh pemujanya..haiya...itu pun tatauka...

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    3. You mean the demostration against the molest was held in Sutera Mall? Why FRU polis did not take action as they do not have the permit and would be illegal?

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  2. True but the pas ppl are always the ceramah and rally people. While the chinese are the sit at home watch the malays jump around type. Case in point the bersih rallys. Seeing the chinese actually attending ceramahs by the thousands is unsettling. 2008 was deem a raceblind election. I dont think thats the case now. I hope ghani wins. But i realistic abt his chances. Lks who boast alot saying he cnt win gelang petah to bernama just shows how confident he is with the chinese vote

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  3. So be it then. I,m still waiting for the Jojhor Malays to speak out.

    Thanks Annie for your updates.

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  4. My two cents worth d outgoing MB wlll bury LKS,..hehehe,.. d big crowds r jst thr to see his antics n listen to stories, but to believe him, nah I doubt d chinese are that stupid when it comes to casting their votes,..hehehe,.. ;-) wat else can I say,..heheh,.. (,")

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  5. LKS can boast all he want but I hope the Johorean Chinese will prove him wrong.

    If we think rationally, this is the best time for Johorean Chinese to buck the trend and thus make sure that they can get the cake and eat it too.

    If they kick LKS out, DAP will still win big elsewhere and do whatever they do best, which is to fight for the well-being of the Chinese.

    But the Johorean Chinese will gain more benefits from grateful BN government of state and federal. Win-win.

    Unfortunately.. most people are a bit irrational at the moment. So we will see lah how it turns out..

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    Replies
    1. No wonder the Indians are bising as BN gives them nothing.

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  6. Ceramahs are just hot air and free entertainment for low class/no class fools and a few die-hard PAS people. The true test will be May 5 and I expect PR to be crushed the same as in 2008. The only future for our nation is BN.

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  7. ANYTHING BUT PAKATAN... LAIN KALI JER LAAA !!!!

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    Replies
    1. yup. lain kali ajalah when nik aziz, lim kiat siang, anwar and karpal are no longer around

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