The move after Kajang move

For observers and analysts, it is already a foregone conclusion. There seems little doubt that PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail will win the Sunday polls.

If the experts are to be believed, it is now just a matter of how big her majority will be, how many voters she and MCA’s Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun can wrest from one other.

However, ask the campaign worker in the Kajang streets, especially from Pakatan, and they would tell you there is much more at stake behind this particular state seat than meets the eye. It’s not just about Kajang, they say.

But how much will Wan Azizah’s expected victory ‘make history’ for her party and coalition, PKR and Pakatan Rakyat, as her supporters claim? What is at stake here, especially for her ‘underdog’ opponent, MCA and Barisan Nasional as a whole?

The whole Kajang drama kicked off in January, when a by-election was automatically triggered with the sudden resignation of the incumbent state assemblyman Lee Chin Cheh.

Lee’s decision occurred against the backdrop of a bitter feud between Selangor menteri besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim and PKR deputy Azmin Ali. It was apparently sparked by discontent among Pakatan members of Khalid, in particular over his handling of the kalimah Allah and the Bible raid issues.

Supposedly to placate Khalid and Azmin, opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was then announced as the Pakatan candidate for the vacant seat.

However, this did not go down well, even among Pakatan supporters. PKR was accused of engineering a by-election for selfish political gains and critics highlighted the money wasted for such a ‘meaningless’ political event. The Election Commission estimated the polls to cost up to RM1.6 million — more than 10% of the RM15.6 million spent on 20 by-elections since 2008.

Undeterred by these harsh criticisms, Pakatan Rakyat pulled together and explained the ‘Kajang move’. In what campaigners would later call the “Kajang, road to Putrajaya” plan, Anwar was to come in as menteri besar to save Selangor, and propel Pakatan closer towards the Federal Government. Khalid, it was presumed, would make way.

It was, simply put, politically brilliant strategy, but somewhat difficult to sell.

And not everyone was on the same page. Khalid surprised critics when he bared his political teeth by apparently refusing to resign his post. To add insult to injury, in the midst of the campaign, Khalid who is also the election director for the Kajang polls, declared that he would challenge Azmin for the PKR deputy presidency.

Amid split opinions over who would make the better menteri besar, two surveys painted two different pictures: one by Universiti Malaya Centre for Elections and Democracy (UMCEDEL) and a smaller one by Universiti Selangor (Unisel).

In the UMCEDEL survey, the majority of Kajang voters were ‘OK’ with the engineered election, with 59% saying the polls were necessary for Anwar to replace Khalid as Selangor mentri besar. The Unisel survey, however, showed that 63% of the respondents were not in favour of Khalid being replaced.

Another survey, from the think tank Center of Strategic Engagement (CENSE), even gave a racial breakdown of the matter: 60% of Malays in Kajang preferred Khalid as the Mentri Besar while 70% of Chinese opted for Anwar and 50% of Kajang Malays polled said they did not mind having a Mentri Besar from PAS.

On March 7, however, those numbers faded into the background as the ‘menteri besar’ storyline took a drastic twist. Just days before nomination day, the Court of Appeal overturned Anwar’s earlier acquittal over the Sodomy II charge of his then aide Saiful Bukhari Azlan. Convicted and sentenced to five years jail, Anwar was automatically disqualified from running for the Kajang seat.

The court decision threw a spanner in Pakatan’s grand plans. They were forced to forget about the menteri besar dilemma and push Wan Azizah to replace Anwar on the Kajang stage.

Anwar was not alone though. In this drawn-out play called 'the Kajang Move', there were a few supporting actors who came and went.

Former PKR and Umno politician Datuk Zaid Ibrahim demanded a debate with Anwar, but ended up withdrawing, throwing his support behind BN; dangdut singer Herman Tino called Anwar a ‘cockroach’ but ended up scurrying away from the contest; Anwar’s former legal assistant Yuktes Vijay wanted to shame his former boss, but got what he wanted earlier than expected when the court ruled in favour of a sodomy victim.

With all the independents withdrawing from the contest, the only actor left on the Kajang stage was the BN candidate Chew, an MCA veteran, in a straight fight against Wan Azizah.

And by all accounts, Chew has toiled hard, if not harder, according to some newspaper reports, than Wan Azizah on the ground.

If one were to call Anwar a giant, Wan Azizah has been described as a ‘mountain’ that is almost impossible to move, especially with public sympathy on her side over her husband’s Sodomy case.

MCA’s hook to sell Chew as the sole Chinese opposition voice in Selangor state assembly is met by a new message brought on strongly by DAP the past week: Wan Azizah as the next Prime Minister-in-waiting after Anwar.

The loud, enticing proposition of having a first woman prime minister, along with shouts of ‘Reformasi 2.0’, is pitted strongly against a weaker, small plea by Chew: "just give me a chance to serve."

Her own apparent 'secret weapon' is simply that she will, comparatively, have more time to serve – settling problems like public transport, flood together with the cash-rich BN machinery. Chew even went to the extent of quipping that, without a husband, she had an advantage over her opponent.

With the candidates themselves seemingly convinced of the results, it is no wonder that academics have already concluded the win will go to Pakatan. It is hard to argue with the analysts, some of whom even attribute this impending loss for MCA to a recurring ‘Chinese tsunami’ reminiscent of GE13.

Research firm Politweet previously estimated an increased support from the Chinese across all ages and a decrease in Malay support aged 43 and above.

Unisel’s survey showed 76% of voters feel Dr Wan Azizah will win as opposed to 24% who believe that Chew will be the winner.

A survey by CENSE showed that the PKR leader enjoys good support from the Chinese, 82% of whom wished she would win while her support among the Indians was 67%.

Voters in Kajang number 39,278, comprising 8,923 Malays (48.5 percent), 3,960 Indans (10.2 per cent), 15,791 Chinese (40.5 per cent) and others 356 (0.9 percent).

In the last general election held in May last year, Lee retained the seat for PKR, defeating MCA's candidate Lee Ban Seng with a majority of 6,824 votes in a six-cornered fight.

For MCA, it is a vital poll as this is the first time it will be tested after its dismal results in GE13. The number of vote it gets is a reflection not only of Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai’s leadership, but the Chinese-based party’s relevance.

With such slim hope from the Chinese voters, and ironically more chances of votes coming from the Malay community, MCA may fare worse. This, according to observers, could mean that MCA would never again have the right to claim the Kajang seat as theirs.

As for Wan Azizah, three different surveys put her expected vote majority at 7,000 votes, 10,000, and 12,000 respectively. But whether or not she gains more votes than Lee, what really matters for the people is how she serves them.