Kajang, Feb 13- With nomination less than a month away for the Kajang by-election, there is strong indication that there will be lesser number of personalities vying for the state seat next month as compared to the last general election (GE).
The Election Commission (EC) has set Mar 11 and Mar 23 as nomination and polling dates respectively for the state seat which fell vacant after the incumbent to the seat resigned last month.
Todate, both PSM and Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) have confirmed that they would not be fielding any candidates for this by-election.
The Kajang state seat comes under the Hulu Langat parliament constituency. The other two state seats under the same constituency are Semenyih and Dusun Tua.
A record of six candidates contested for the Kajang seat during the GE last year. PKR’s candidate was Lee Chin Cheh, while Barisan Nasional (BN) fielded MCA’s Lee Ban Seng.
Whereas Isma’s Mohamad Ismail contested under the Berjasa banner. The other three who contested were independents, namely, Khalid Kassim, Ong Yan Foo and Mohd Iwan Jefry Abdul Majid.
PKR’s Lee won the seat with a 6,824 majority, polling in 19,571 votes. Lee Ban Seng from BN only managed to clinch 12,747 votes; while the rest lost their deposits. Voter turn-out was at 87.9%. There were 541 spoilt votes.
Four-cornered fight?
So this brings us to the question of who will be contesting in the coming by-election?
According to the data provided by the EC, there are 38,965 registered voters in the Kajang state constituency. Out of which 48% are Malays, 41% Chinese, 10% Indians and 1% from other ethnic groups.
Kajang has a population of 342, 657 people; of which 60.4% are Malays, 19.3% Chinese, 9.7% Indians and 10.6% others.
As far as PKR is concerned, they will be fielding their supremo de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Meanwhile MCA has confirmed that they will contest the seat since traditionally Kajang has been their territory. This was confirmed by its president Liow Tiong Lai last Sunday, though he fell short in naming the candidate.
He affirmed this when asked to comment on the offer made by S Nallakaruppan to contest the seat. Nallakaruppan is the president of Malaysian Indian United Party (MIUP) which is BN-friendly.
Nallakaruppan, while offering himself as a possible candidate during a press conference last week said that it will also be an opportunity for him to expose Anwar’s sexual misdeeds to the Kajang voters.
Nevertheless, sentiments on the ground from Umno and local voters are against Nallakaruppan standing for the by-election.
On the other hand, newly registered party, New Generation Party (NewGen) has expressed interest in the Kajang seat too.
Coming into the race is also Yuktes Vijay, Anwar’s former legal aide. He made his intention public via his Facebook and twitter accounts.
Thus Kajang, the town which is renowned for its satay, may see a four-cornered tussle in the by-election.
But the field is still open. Surprises could be sprung on the eve of nomination. But for now the battle for Kajang is just starting to take shape.
-FreeMalaysiaToday
