In a possible admission of past shenanigans, the Permatang Pauh division of ruling party UMNO announced today that the Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate in the constituency’s upcoming by-election will not be putting up new projects or allocations to get local voters on their side – unlike last time.
Division chief Mohd Zaidi Mohd Said vowed his party would put up a clean fight while campaigning for the Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat, recently left vacant following the incarceration of Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on sodomy charges.
“This time, we will not announce any major projects or allocations for Permatang Pauh as our approach this time is to go down to the ground and get close to our voters to tell them that the BN representative will be there for them if they vote for BN,” Mohd Zaidi told The Malay Mail Online‘s Opalyn Mok in an interview today.
The UMNO man seemed to tacitly admit that his party had previously waved “goodies” in front of constituents in Permatang Pauh in return for their votes. He then turned the narrative around and accused rival PKR of planning to employ the same tactic in the run-up to the May 7 polls.
“Usually, BN is the one to announce this project or that project but this time, it is PR announcing multimillion ringgit upgrading works for the Permatang Pauh market and also for the Seberang Jaya market complex,” he said.
Mohd Zaidi was likely referring to the Penang state government’s announcement last week that it would carry out a RM12 million market complex upgrade project in the area.
Continuing his combative streak, Mohd Zaidi mocked the Pakatan Rakyat coalition for only anouncing its candidate for Permatang Pauh after BN had done so.
“It is their stronghold, so it seems strange that PR felt challenged and has deferred announcing their candidate until after we announce ours on Thursday.”
Rumoured to run for BN will be Dr Mazlan Ismail, who lost by almost 12,000 votes to Anwar in the 2013 General Elections.
The mostly likely candidate from PKR would be Anwar’s wife, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, who had previously stood in for her husband while he was in prison in 1999 for his first sodomy conviction, before stepping down to let Anwar contest again in 2008.
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