Tanjung Piai - Old and new friends, tale of two ceramah

Just got back from my rounds in Tanjung Piai today.

Met some old friends who are campaigning here and made some new friends among the locals.

The old friends are mostly those from the days when I was involved in the defence of Johor in the run up to the general election in 2013.

They are good guys.

Things were not so good though for them when Khaled Nordin took over the MB post from TS Abdul Ghani Othman.

I don't want to go into details, but suffice to say that Khaled and his team were not kind at all to them. Personally, I believe it's because of their affiliation to Ghani.

Some of them turned to the other side in GE14 but they are mostly back supporting BN now, hoping that the Umno leadership will change for the better after the defeat last year.

As for my new friends, there's this particular guy who runs a chalet business at Kampung Air Masin. The guy, I believe, is not very educated, yet was very clear about how he sees things.

He was very careful at first about revealing his political affiliation but once I told him that I support BN, he opened up in his rather broken Bahasa Malaysia and told me how much he detests Pakatan.

"Ini orang semua cakap saja banyak, buat kerja apa pun tak tau. Kita semua sekarang susah. Itu dulu kita sokong dia orang sebab kita marah sama Najib. Tapi itu dulu punya cerita. Sekarang dia orang masih cakap saja, kita sudah tak mau dengar la. Kita mau kerja punya orang sekarang," he said.

On BN candidate Wee Jeck Seng, he said something like this,
"Itu orang baik punya. Semua orang susah dia kasi tolong. Cina ka, Melayu ka, India ka, semua dia tolong. Sini kampung, orang semua suka dia. Kita sini mau kasi dia menang dulu tapi dia kalah juga. Itu tak boleh buat apa ma. Itu jam orang marah."

Wee was the assemblyman of Pekan Nenas from 2004 to 2008 and from then on was elected to be the Tanjung Piai MP till he lost the seat last year.

Well, I'm now quite confident he will win his seat back.

Feeling very tired from my rounds now, but I feel that it's worth it.

The crowd at the BN's ceramah in Kampung Sawah just now was quite big.

A policeman friend said it's about 5,000, which I think was quite a fair estimation.

What's more significant I think was that, the crowd was made up mostly of locals as it was noted that not too many of them were wearing the BN's blue of its election workers.

It's unlike the Pakatan's one last night,

You all can read about the Pakatan's ceramah by clicking on this link,

It didn’t rain but some left while Mahathir was speaking

For the BN's ceramah tonight, this is The Star's report,

PONTIAN: A large crowd gathered at the Himpunan Penyatuan Ummah Muafakat Nasional ceramah organised by Umno and PAS, in conjunction with the Tanjung Piai by-election at Kampung Sawah near Pekan Nanas here.

Traffic leading to the ceramah is at a standstill, with many cars and motorcycles parked at the side of the road and peoples' houses before walking a long distance to enter the ceramah.

Villagers of Kampung Sawah, which is located about five km away from Pekan Nanas, are mostly small palm oil stakeholders.

A local resident said that there has never been such a gathering in the area before, where crowds started to gather at around 7.30pm on Thursday (Nov 14) night.

Also during the campaigning, no one has held a mega ceramah here.

The crowd was entertained with Nashid performances while they wait for Barisan Nasional bigwigs, including former prime minister Najib Tun Razak, Umno president Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, state Umno chief Datuk Hasni Mohamad, PAS deputy president Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man and other leaders.

Local traders were also seen selling a variety of food here.

Read more at https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/11/14/umno-pas-ceramah-draws-large-crowd-at-pekan-nanas#SPGkPkeM6CuQBibP.99

Okay, I need to rest now. Really very tired.

Good night.