Seats that may change the trajectory of Malaysian politics (Part 1)
Every seat has its own stories
There are a number of very interesting seats to watch this election. Many of the interesting fights concern incumbents who have switched to other parties like Arau, and Gombak. Some of the seats where political leaders like Ahmad Zahid Hamadi and Anwar Ibrahim are contesting. Khairy Jamaluddin, ousted from his seat in Rembau and forced to fight in Sungai Buloh, is another one to watch.
Every seat has its own stories, which will influence the results. Here’s a look at some of the contests that could have far reaching consequences on Malaysian politics beyond the election.
Counting on Saturday night will be extremely long to the number of multi-cornered contests.
Tambun is the seat PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim has chosen to contest. Part of the motivation is to punish a defector, Ahmad Faizal Azumu, who won the seat for PKR, but in August 2021, defected to Bersatu. Ahmad won the seat in 2018 with a 5,320 majority over both the BN and PAS.
There are four contestants for the seat this time round. Anwar and Ahmad will face Aminuddin Md Hanafiah of the BN, and Abdul Rahman Tahir of Pejuang.
Ahmad Faizal, who is Bersatu deputy president will try and hold off Anwar’s challenge. This will be interesting to watch, as the stakes are high for Anwar. If Anwar loses this contest, he will be ineligible to become prime minister, even if PH wins the election.
Gombak will be one of the most interesting seats of the election. Azmin Ali, the three-term incumbent will try to hold the seat against current Selangor Mentri Besar Amirudin Shari, contesting for PH.
Azmin Ali was former Mentri Besar of Selangor, and a federal minister under Mahathir Mohamed, Muhyiddin Yassin and Ismail Sabri Yaakob. Azmin with his group of PKR defectors brought down the Pakatan Harapan in the Sheraton Putsch, bringing much anger and hate towards him from some Pakatan supporters.
In the 75% Malay outer urban electorate, Azmin has been high profile, helping many within the community. The main issue for Azmin will be the loyalty he has built up over three terms as the local member, verses, the anger many constituents have for him.
Azmin won the seat with a 75,619 majority. However, Mahathir who actively campaigned against BN in 2018, persuaded many traditional BN supporters to drift towards Azmin. In 2013, Azmin only won with a 4,734 majority.
Amiruddin Shari with his popularity as Selangor Mentri Besar will try and wrest the seat from Azmin. Megat Zulkarnain Omardin will hope a split in the vote of the above two, may allow him to snatch the seat.
Aziz Jamaludin Mohd Tahir is running for Pejuang, and Zulkifli Ahmad, as an independent.
Sungai Buloh spans across the Gombak to Kuala Selangor districts within Selangor. The seat was created just before the 2018 election, which Sivarasa Rasiah won with a 26,634 vote majority.
However, Sivarasa was dropped as a candidate by PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim in favour of an ex-MIC strongman Ramanan Ramakrishnan, who faced charges of fruad against him, earlier in his career. This potentially puts a dent in his integrity, but the seat was still seen as winnable by PKR leadership.
That was until caretaker health minister Khairy Jamauddin nominated in Sungai Buloh, after being pushed out of his Rembau seat by Mohamed Hasan of UMNO. Although, this is an extremely difficult seat to win for Khairy, he is putting in a very intense campaign, playing upon his own personal popularity to pull him through. Khairy’s political life depends upon winning the seat.
Other candidates contesting the seat include Mohd Ghazali Md Hamin of PAS, Mohd Akmal Mohd Yusof of Pejuang, PRM president Ahmad Jufliz Faizal, and two indepedents Nurhaslinda Basri, and Syed Razak Alsagoff.
Clearly, UMNO president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi wanted Khairy out of parliament with this seat allocation. However, if Khairy could pull off a win, this would greatly enhance his stature within the party, and put him in a position to be able to reform UMNO, sometime down the track. With Khairy out of parliament, reform within UMNO will be a non-starter.
Arau is a predominantly rural constituency in Perlis, where UMNO has just been able to hold off PAS, over a number of years. One exception was a by-election in 1998, where Hashim Jasin was able to snatch the seat from the BN, only to lose it back to the BN in the 1999 general election.
UMNO warlord Shahidan Kassim has held the seat for two terms. In 2013 he achieved a 4,856 vote majority and in 2018 he once again held the seat in a three sided battle against PH and PAS, with a 4,856 vote majority.
Shahidan was dropped as a candidate for the coming election. Rozabil Abd Rahman is well known within the Arau area, being a former head of UMNO Youth in the division. After being dropped, Shahidan closed his BN campaign headquarters and made a quick trip to Kuala Terengganu to seek endorsement for Perikatan Nasional from PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang.
This election Arau will be a three cornered contest with Fathin Amelia Fazlie as the PH candidate.
Shahidan is being fiercely resisted by many UMNO members, who have issues going back years with the warlord. There have already been a suspension of some UMNO members who were assisting Shahidan’s campaign. In addition, many within the PAS grassroots don’t want anything to do with his campaign. Lots of dirty tricks are occurring within the constituency on a daily basis. Shahidan is pouring millions of Ringgit into his campaign.
The final result will be extremely difficult to predict, but on paper Shahidan may just scape through.
Simpang Renggam within the Kluang district in Johor, is currently held by Maszlee Malik, who won the seat unexpectedly under Bersatu back in 2018. Maszlee, a former protégé of Mahathir Mohamed was appointed as education minister in the Pakatan government, but dismissed by Mahathir before the government fell in 2020.
Simpang Renggam has been traditionally a BN seat. Maszlee took the seat with a 3,475 vote majority.
This time round, Simpang Renggam will be a four cornered contest. Maszlee will face Kamal Kusmin of Pejuang, PN’s Mohd Fazrul Kamat, and UMNO’s Hasni Mohammad, a former Mentri Besar of Johor.
Maszlee didn’t perform well in the Johor state election Layang Layang seat which falls inside the federal Simpang Renggam constituency. He lost to Abdul Mutalip Abd Rahim by 2,815 votes. The neighbouring Machap constituency, also saw a BN victory with a 6,543 vote majority. Machap also falls within the Simpang Renggam constituency.
Maszlee was chased out of a hall during the campaign by an angry voter.
Its going to be a real battle for Maszlee to hold the seat.
Bagan Datuk is a long held BN stronghold in Perak, which has always been in the hands of the BN. It’s been safe for UMNO president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, since he was first elected back in 1995.
However, Zahid’s winning margin in 2008 and 2013 were slim around the 2,000 vote majority mark. Zahid was able to increase his majority by opening the Hutan Melintang Army Camp in his constituency, which contributed to a majority of 5,073. However, the camp was closed by the PH government when they came to office.
This time round Zahid has stiff competition. PKR’s Shamsul Iskandar Md Akin, who twice defeated former Melaka chief minister Ali Rustam twice is running. In addition, PN is fielding Muhammad Faiz Na’aman. Gerak Independent (GI) co-founder Tawfik Ismail, is also running.
The seat will have an influx of 15,000 new voters, who may swamp Zahid’s traditional base, the Javanese and Telugu communities. In addition, many local UMNO members are not cooperating or assisting in Zahid’s campaign, where a small group is going to the extent of sabotaging it.
The Littoral Combat Ship scandal is big talk in the seat, where blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin, has alleged Zahid directly benefitted financially from the project.
Zahid’s best hope of maintaining his seat is a deep split within the opposition vote. If the split is enough, and Zahid receives the highest number of votes, he will be declared the winner. Failure of Zahid to win a seat in parliament will drastically weaken his ability to influence pending charges against him through the executive.
Muar is Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman seat. Syed Saddiq had a spectacular and convincing win back in 2018, taking a safe BN seat for Bersatu. Syed Saddiq, at the age of 26 was rewarded with the Sports and Youth Ministry.
Although, Syed Saddiq has a 6,953 vote majority, he will have to work hard to increase his majority. MUDA won one seat in the recent Johor state election, and Syed Saddiq must build on the momentum, to keep MUDA moving forward.
BN is fielding Mohd Helmy Abd Latif, while PN is fielding Abdulah Husin.
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