While the incessant rain is hampering the last day of campaigning for the two Tenang by-election candidates, their machinery hasn’t suffered much drought with regards to creativity.
In a clever attempt to woo Chinese voters, Teresa Teng’s classic favourite ‘The Moon Represents my Heart’ is the background music for a slide-show of PAS candidate Normala Sudirman meeting with Tenang constituents during her campaign trail.
The last line of the song chorus, which is accompanied with subtitles, says: “Bulan melambangkan cinta saya" (the moon represents my love).
This slide-show is a common sight around Tenang and is usually played before ceramahs.
Normala, 38 a former teacher who is PAS Labis Muslimat chief and mother to a 13-year old daughter, and two sons aged 10 and eight, resigned from her job in December to serve PAS full time as a state representative in Johor.
Cikgu Mala, as she is affectionately known, has taken her campaigning efforts a notch down today.
There have been no programmes slated for her on Saturday after a busy week of the typical door-to-door and market visits, and appearances at dinners and ceramahs with Pakatan Rakyat (PR) bigwigs.
Despite being favoured to win, Umno’s Mohd Azahar Ibrahim, a former assistant district officer in Rengit, is not resting on his laurels.
Today is a heavy day for Mohd Azahar, 39, who usually had his last programme scheduled for 9pm during the one-week long.
His last lap of campaigning started with prayers at 6am at the Masjid Jamek in Labis, followed by walkabouts around Labis town.
He is scheduled to attend a 1Malaysia dinner at 7pm, followed by another walkabout till midnight – which marks the end of campaigning period.
The quiet father of three children, aged between six years and eight months, has proven to be media shy and evades being cornered for interviews, even after press conferences.
He submitted to a seemingly standard Umno and Barisan Nasional campaign approach.
His machinery was spotted distributing a comic book titled ‘Najib’ which has an illustration of the story of Umno president and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Abdul Razak.
The comic depicts of the rise of Mohd Najib, the son of former Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein Al-Haj, from his early days till he was appointed the premier in May 2009.
The 14,753 Tenang state seat voters will choose between the two candidates tomorrow (Sunday) from 8am.
The Tenang by-election was called following the passing of the late Datuk Sulaiman Taha, who beat Mohd Saim Siram (PAS) in the 2008 General Election by winning the seat with a 2,491 majority.
