High stakes in Terengganu by-election

If there is one thing Barisan Nasional could do without at this time, it is having to put its popularity to the test even as it struggles with tension in its ranks.

But it has no choice. Today, the Election Commission will announce the date of a by-election in Terengganu, which was called after Umno MP Datuk Razali Ismail died last Friday. He was also the Deputy Education Minister.

The seat will be contested between Umno and its conservative rival Pas. The candidates are expected to be local politicians from this oil-rich state.

But the battle for the seat is far bigger than that. It is already painted as a war between the two leaders who have their eyes on the prime ministership — Deputy Premier Datuk Seri Najib Razak and opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Najib, as Umno deputy president, traditionally leads the party's election machinery, while Anwar heads the Pakatan Rakyat opposition coalition.

This was an Umno seat won by a narrow majority of 628 votes in the March general election. Razali defeated Pas vice-president Mohamad Sabu and 89-year-old grandmother Maimun Yusuf.

The parliamentary by-election spells a tough fight ahead.

A win for the opposition will not topple the BN government.

But the result will mean a lot to Najib.

Previously, there was Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to take the brickbats for BN's dismal performance in the March polls, and the by-election in Penang, which swept Anwar back into Parliament.

Abdullah subsequently caved in to pressure to hand over power to Najib, who is seen as more capable of fending off the resurgent opposition.
“Najib will have to carry this on his own,” said Ibrahim Suffian, director of pollster Merdeka Centre.

At the same time, attention will be on Anwar, too, because of tensions with Pas. The Islamic party is caught in a tug-of-war between its religious scholars, who favour a conservative track, and the modernists, who want to reach out to non-Malays.

The modernists want deeper ties with Anwar, while the old school prefers to work with Umno or go it alone.

The Terengganu Pas leaders are aligned to the religious scholars. Still, most analysts do not expect the rifts to spill much into the by-election.

The polls will be seen as a bellwether of the Malay heartland vote. The Kuala Terengganu constituency is 88.2 per cent Malay, with nearly 11 per cent Chinese. Indians form 0.6 per cent of the electorate, and other races such as the Orang Asli form the remaining 0.2 per cent.

“Umno has been building an image as the champion of the Malays, and now it will have to demonstrate that this resonates with the Malays,” said Ibrahim.

The roiling debate on Malay supremacy, Malay rights, and the country's education system will feed into the election.

But while the Malay vote is the most important, the small but significant Chinese vote could prove to be the kingmaker if the Malays are equally split between Umno and Pas.

This is what happened in elections in 2004 and this year.

Political analyst Ong Kian Ming, who has studied detailed polling data, said it was the Chinese votes that swung the result.

Kuala Terengganu was held by BN in 1986, went to the opposition in 1990, back to BN in 1995, then to the opposition in 1999, and back to BN in 2004 and this year.

“While Pas benefited from the national backlash among Chinese voters against the BN in 2008, it was not sufficient for it to regain the seat,” Ong said.

But he believed that the Chinese could be more willing to vote Pas this time to “send a message” to Umno, which had consistently alienated the non-Malay voters as it sought to win back lost Malay support.

The wealth of issues has brought pundits rushing to keep a close watch on this unexpected by-election for clues into the state of Malaysian politics.

The candidates have not been named, but speculation has it that the Umno candidate will be Deputy Home Minister Wan Farid Salleh, who heads the Kuala Terengganu Umno division.

Pas is said to be contemplating its Terengganu chief Mustafa Ali, who was a senior member of government when the party governed the state from 1999 to 2004. Other possible candidates are former Kuala Terengganu MP Syed Azman Syed Ahmad Nawawi, and Mohamad Sabu who contested the seat in March.

-TMI