In Manek Urai, PAS was the great pretender

If there was one thing that PAS did well throughout the Manek Urai by-election campaign, it was pretending that all was well in the party. It pretended that the senior leaders of the party were united, when it was an open secret that certain leaders, including deputy president Nasharudin Mat Isa, were barred from campaigning. The ban was only lifted after the state leaders realised the national implication of such an action.

Nasharudin's brief appearance in the rural constituency, and his act of performing prayers with Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, was among attempts to show that all was well between the PAS No. 2 and the state leadership. The Bachok MP had initially admitted that he was barred from campaigning, only to make a U-turn hours later, pretending not to know anything about such a directive. PAS also tried to show that the unity government or unity talks episode — which caused the campaign ban in Manek Urai — was finally behind it. But the problem was hardly solved.

Just weeks earlier PAS Youth and Umno Youth held a joint press conference to announce their intention to hold what they termed as “intellectual discussions”, just one day after senior Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders declared their commitment to the coalition. The weeks before campaigning started also saw a central committee member barred from criticising the unity government proposal, which was mooted by party president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang. A commentary by Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, the PAS strategist, slamming the idea was removed from the party newspaper, Harakah, and thousands of copies of the publication had to be reprinted.

Throughout the campaign PAS also projected the stability and the success of the Kelantan state government led by Nik Aziz. At all rallies the party spiritual adviser spoke of the implementation of Islamic principles in the state, and how well Kelantan was run compared to other Barisan Nasional (BN) states. But the days of stability in the Kelantan government are numbered. The frail-looking Nik Aziz has no credible succession plan. The most popular and perhaps experienced executive councillor Datuk Husam Musa had publicly said that he was not interested in leading the state government.

But like any Islamist movement, PAS has to continue pretending that everything is well, in line with the practice of keeping the secrets of the jemaah from the public. And it paid the price yesterday when more than 1,000 voters who had voted for the party just last year backed BN instead, giving PAS an embarrassingly tiny margin of victory of 65 votes. For PAS, pretending can be fatal.

In Manek Urai, a battle for the votes of just a few

Anwar Ibrahim


Whatever the outcome of the Manek Urai by-election, it will not be by a landslide majority. Both sides of the political divide seem to agree on this as they battle for what they say are just a small number of fence-sitters in the predominantly Malay constituency. According to Kelantan Umno chief Datuk Mustapa Mohamed, fewer than 15 per cent of voters were undecided when the campaign began and there is now under 10 per cent of votes up for grabs. Making up over 99 per cent of the 12,300 voters here, rural Malays are known for usually pinning their loyalties onto a familiar flag.

"In Manek Urai, there are a lot of resettlers here who came to toil the ground and found a better life. Those that were brought here by PAS will vote for PAS and those brought by BN will go for BN," said Tumpat MP Datuk Kamaruddin Jaafar. The former PAS secretary-general said that while PAS was confident of a victory in a seat it has lost only once in six previous votes, he said that it would be difficult to increase the majority by a large margin. However sources in PAS Kelantan say that they are predicting a 2,000-vote win, an increase from the 1,352 margin achieved here by the late Ismail Yaacob in the 2008 general election. To achieve this, it has to bring back outstation voters to balance out the young votes.

Most of the youth who still live in Manek Urai are desperate for job opportunities and BN appears to have successfully played up its promise of projects here amid accusations that PAS is incapable of bringing development to the area. "There are about 1,900 voters outstation. Most of them are youth who have been in urban areas and because of that, mostly support Pakatan Rakyat," a PAS MP said. BN deputy chief and election director Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has also urged his election machinery to win the July 14 poll bit by bit. "If each day we take one per cent, we can win," he had said.

While his maths may not be accurate — the eight-day campaign will only gain BN 984 votes this way, which is still short of overcoming the previous majority — he made his point that every single vote will count in the seat it won by a mere 53 votes in 2004. The schedules of both PAS's Mohd Fauzi Abdullah and BN's Tuan Aziz Tuan Mat have also not been too hectic with a lot of ad-hoc visits being made rather than packed pre-planned events. Tuan Aziz had time yesterday to make an unscheduled stop at a parent-teacher association event after taking a mid-morning break at home while Mohd Fauzi even took time out to meet some bloggers.

Can Umno grab Manek Urai, a PAS fortress?

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There are very few constituencies with over 99 per cent of Malay voters but Manek Urai in Kelantan is one such example. It is there that PAS's Mohamed Fauzi Abdullah, 50, a fish wholesaler, will face Umno’s Tuan Aziz Tuan Mat, 39, a manager with the Kelantan Selatan Development Authority or Kesedar in a by-election next month. And their July 14 battle has ramifications beyond Kelantan with political big guns, on both sides, descending on this small rural community bringing with them national issues. Voters who are pre-occupied with bread and butter issues like the price of scrap rubber, fish and the weather, can look forward to an entertaining time.

Manek Urai has enjoyed the charm and charisma of the late Ismail Yaakob, whose death caused the by-election, and whose departed presence clouds the by-election battle with both sides admitting he was “incomparable”. Legend has it that Yaakob once shot dead a tiger that had entered a kampung in Manek Urai and attacked villagers.

Politically he is legend, winning the seat for PAS five times even during the worst of times for the party like in the 1978 general election when Umno won 34 seats and PAS won only two, one of it Manek Urai. “That’s history. Manek Urai is fortress PAS,” PAS by-election director Cikgu Wan Abdul Rahim told The Malaysian Insider. “We are confident but we will also work very hard.” He said while big guns are raising national issues like oil royalty for Kelantan, the Port Klang Free Trade Zone fiasco and the loss of Perak, bread and butter issues would dominate the by-election campaign. The by-election comes as Umno is finding its footing in a changed political landscape with the majority of Chinese and Indians backing the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) as evident in recent by-elections with traditional Malay votes divided between PAS and Umno.

Umno hopes to capitalise on its revival in morale it by championing Malay rights. At the same time it is trying to regain Chinese and Indian support with numerous "fair minded" schemes appealing to non-Malays. It is a doubled edged policy. On the one hand it still seeks to frighten Malays into Umno's embrace by raising fears that the Chinese are “advancing” and on the other hand assuring Chinese and Indians that they have a firm place under the sun. With nearly 100 per cent of voters in Manek Urai Malays, the by-election is an important test of how successfully Umno is in winning over Malay support by playing on their fears of “losing” the country to the "advancing" Chinese.

Such strategies revisits old ghosts that had worked well in the past but in today’s changed political landscape the impact might be minimal. But old fears seldom die easily especially if new fuel is added to relight the embers. What might work against PAS is the deep schism between the Nik Aziz-led faction that is against any deals with Umno and the faction led by PAS president Hadi Awang. The issue has divided the party rank and file. The by-election is being seen by the grassroots as a fight between the Nik Aziz-faction versus Umno, not a PAS-Umno tussle or even a PR-BN fight.