An abandoned building in Jalan Pantai,Port Dickson. BN has pledged to bring development to Bagan Pinang if it wins. So far Pas failure to highlight national issue against BN. While BN is succesful of campaigning Isa as a local boy ex Menteri Besar who knows the state and its people.
PAS vice-president Salahuddin Ayub allege the electoral roll contain same name with both postal votes and normal votes. Not consistent. Want court to delay the polling.
Alleging that hundreds of postal voters are also ordinary registered voters, PAS today said it will seek a court order to postpone polling for the Bagan Pinang by-election scheduled for this Sunday.
Speaking to reporters at the media briefing today, PAS vice-president Salahuddin Ayub said the party will first meet the Election Commission (EC) this afternoon.
"This afternoon we will meet the Election Commission to demand a clean-up of the electoral roll," he said.
"If the EC does not do so we will not hesitate to take legal action, we will get our legal team to seek a court injunction to postpone polling," he added.
Salahuddin (picture) said the party has discovered the existence of what he described as dubious voters in the electoral roll for quite some time.
"We have brought up this matter for years, since the formation of Bersih, and in various meetings with EC, but no action has been taken," he said when asked why PAS was only taking action now.
Another PAS vice-president, Datuk Mahfuz Omar, cited a Bernama report quoting the president of the ex-servicemen’s association, Datuk Muhammad Abdul Ghani, who urged retired soldiers who have yet to change their status to ordinary voters to return to Bagan Pinang if they are still registered as postal voters in the constituency.
"So the issue here is, are the retired soldiers going to come back to vote or somebody else will vote for them?" asked Mahfuz.
PAS had previously claimed that 70 per cent of the postal voters in Bagan Pinang are retired servicemen.
Some 4,600 of the more than the 13,000 voters in the Bagan Pinang state constituency are members of the security forces.
The postal voters, traditionally a safe vote bank for Barisan Nasional (BN), will vote tomorrow while ordinary voters will go to the polls on Sunday.
PAS trailling behind BN in campaign in Bagan PenangSince campaigning began on Saturday, PAS is still trailing far behind Umno, said party workers familiar with the campaign machinery.
“I think because they are trapped with the local issues, honestly I too feel trapped in this game,” said PKR supreme council member Badrul Hisham Shaharin, who was responsible for the banners highlighting BN's alleged failure to keep its promises made in the neighbouring Rembau parliamentary constituency.
“But we are hoping to turn this into a national battle in the final lap, hopefully when Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim arrives,” he told The Malaysian Insider. The opposition leader will only hit the campaign trail tomorrow.
PAS too has been unable to capitalise on the cow head demonstration in Shah Alam last August to win over the support of the Indians, who form some 20 per cent of the more than 13,000 voters.
At every campaign stop in Indian-dominated areas, Isa will remind the voters of the campaign message of former PKR founding leader Roslan Kassim, who contested against Datuk S. Sothinathan in Teluk Kemang in 1999.
“PKR is very bad; you remember in 1999 Roslan Kassim asked the voters here, do you want a mosque or temple?” said Isa.
Pas failure in Campaign so far.With only four more days left before polling in the Bagan Pinang by-election, PAS appears to have fallen into the trap laid by Umno's campaign message, resulting in the Islamist party's failing to make any headway in the Umno stronghold.
Instead of bringing national issues to this coastal town, PAS has been spending a lot of resources in this campaign responding to development offers made by Barisan Nasional (BN) through its candidate Tan Sri Mohd Isa Abdul Samad.
PAS's daily media briefings now sound like a town hall dialogue, where the election strategists speak of abandoned construction projects near the beach, inefficient sewerage system and traffic congestion — a far cry from the Kuala Terengganu campaign led by Datuk Mustafa Ali when the Election Commission, the police force and Petronas became his main targets.
“I think the national issue is clear, it is about the integrity of the candidates, but we are also focusing on local issues because BN has been highlighting the fact that Isa is local boy and was a mentri besar, so he is able to serve the constituency well. That is why we have to respond to that message by showing his failure,” said the Bagan Pinang PAS election chief Salahuddin Ayub.
-----Former Negeri Sembilan menteri besar and now BN candidate for the Bagan Pinang by-election says that his offence for which he was suspended from Umno was 'technical' in nature.
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