D Day for Bukit Gantang.
I am stopping by at Kuala Kangsar to post this article. Then maybe I will do lunch by enjoying the famed Perak gulai tempoyak ikan patin. Let's see whether Perakians cook gulai tempoyak better than Pahang people. Today the rakyat in Bukit Gantang will cast their votes. The outcome for this crucial by election will be decided by the 38 Pusat Mengundi and the 111 salurans. These are located within the 3 DUNs in Bukit Gantang. I could see the 'hot' voting centres like SK Changkat Ibol and SRJKC Poay Eng in Kuala Sepetang. In Changkat Jering they are SK Jelutong and SK Changkat Jering while in Trong, the hotly contested voting centres are SK Padang Gajah and SJKRC Sungai Rotan. What will be the deciding factors? What's happening to the saluran 1 and 2 consisting of mature adults? I went around some of the above named voting centres and saw people coming out enthusiastically. I am under no illusions as to who these enthusiastic voters are going to vote. Most of those in cars stuck in traffic jams are Chinese. Their preferences were already decided. In my mind the outcome of the elections will only go to BN if they can influence those voting in saluran 3, 4 and 5 which are made up generally of the younger generation and equally important, the Chinese voters. Basically as I see it, the Chinese are inclined to vote for the PR. The younger generation on the whole is inclined to vote for PR. Yesterday evening as I made my rounds in Kuala Sepetang and Changkat Jering, there were many young men distributing pamphlets. I pulled down my window and reached out to get some of the pamphlets. One is a pamphlet issued by Salahudin Ayub the PAS youth chief reaching out specifically to younger voters. The other is a pamphlet narrating a purported interview between a journalist and a PAS member of Bukit Gantang. That outlined the principles of PAS's struggle. The integrity of these two pamphlets or even their accuracy is debatable. What attracted my interest though was the fact that these are distributed by young people who are normally associated as being disenchanted with politics. How is it possible that the younger generation such as these who are not necessarily card carrying members of PAS can now be converted to PR/PAS cause? To me that can only indicate a monumental shift in emotional allegiance away from UMNO politics to anti UMNO politics. Perhaps they represent the disillusioned lumpen-proletarriat who can nevertheless be converted to a political cause promising them a future that seeks to correct whatever excesses, real and imagined associated with UMNO. This should be made into a humbling reminder to the UMNO leadership. Unless the leadership can rally the younger generation who are playing a reverse role of influencing their parents, UMNO will lose this election. Hence I find it amusing a remark by a blogger friend that the under 40 represents only 30-40% of the electorate with the sublime implication that the younger set will not be a crucial determining factor. Well, the facts culled from my own experience tell me that these young people, who are better educated and informed are now influencing their parents who to vote. So just imagine that if 40% of the 55,000 voters which is about 22,000 manage to persuade just 1 member of their family, the numbers who will vote against BN swell to 40,000. In an earlier blog, I offered a non partisan observation saying the organisational competence and integrity of UMNO Bahagian Bukit Gantang is suspect. It is probably infected with internal dissension manifested in turn by a clear lack of determination and commitment to see UMNO win. This factor is another crucial determinant in this by elections. Against this background and supplanted by my observations on the scene, my prediction for Bukit Gantang will be as follows; PAS will take the Kuala Sepetang and Changkat Jering DUNs while UMNO will marginally win Trong. The winner in this election will be the much maligned and ill treated NIzar. The outcome has already been written in the stars.
31 comments:
Semestinya Perak nya gulai tempoyak lagi best.
atok,
Mereka boleh nampak UMNO bersungguh2 kali ini dan mereka menambahkan kekuatan jentera muda mereka.
Kenapa pemuda UMNO dan puteri tidak memainkan peranan menghantar pamphlets?
Inilah yg saya katakan, mereka tak buat kerja, mereka nak pangkat, cakap berdegar2 tapi nak bagi pamphlets pun malu jatuh standard.
Bagi pamphlets malu, tapi mintak org sokong lepas berlagak, tak malu?
Pembangkang (PAS)PUNYA postive attitude, mereka memberi saingan, dengan cara mereka sendiri untuk melawan kemaraan UMNO.
Itulah value yg org2 UMNO kurang!
anon 12.51,
bezanya antara bn & pr, pekerja bn perlu dibayar untuk kerja dan pekerja pr pulak buat secara sukarela.
Dato Sak,
The difference between BN and PR, the latter is hungrier and more determine than the former. It's Roger Federer and Nadal. The challenger always has the EXTRA energy to fight.
BN workers are too complacent and more worried about their unknown cabinet position. This is the first time I hardly hear of the presence of the menteri-menteri,timbalan and kuncu-kuncu compared with the Ijok by election.
My dua sen opinion!
Agree with Dato' Sak's observation that BN will lose in Bukit Gantang due to the reasons stated. Something serious need to urgently be done to address this matter.
Hello everyone.
As you can see ada jugak spelling errors and a tiny grammar mistake here and there.
Dato sak tak sempat nak betulkan. Also masa di Taiping he posted his articles mainly from the kopitiams..macam J.K. Rowling so to speak.Anyway he posted this article hurriedly while in Kuala Kangsar.
Please excuse him for any spelling or grammar errors.
Thanks so much.
Mari kita bersungguh meminta ampun pada KP Baru dan mejemput beliau berkempen di Bukit Gantang.
AMPUN KJ! BERIBU RIBU AMPUN!
Tengoklah dengan mata hati yg positif. Sekurang2 hikmahnya adalah supaya UMNo bekerja lagi dengan lebih keras dan bukan ambil mudah semua perkara.
Perhalusi komen dan perbetulkan keadaan mana yg tak betul. Belajar perkara2 yg positif dari parti lawan.
in my hometown the so called UMNO bigshots will lepak at kedai kopi as if kedai tu dia yang punya..they will look down on you.i remember when i first come back to work they approach me (with mum being in UMNO for years)..masuklah senang dapat projek.there were no talk about helping people etc.it was just project here and there...how on earth to attract the younger ones?
Sak, I will be waiting for your analysis of the 3 by-elections tomorrow. BN 3-0.
Thanks Dato for the first hand accounts and your interpretation of events. Your analysis will be more meaningful because of your presence there.
It would be interesting to know the reasons for the lack of Pemuda presence and the apparent lepas tangan attitude of the others.
Aninymous 17.20.
My predictions are similar to you.
I am rather unhappy that Datuk Sak as an Umnoman have very little confidence in his party.
P.S. I have eaten ikan Patin in KK and Pahang. Of course being a Pahangnite, Pahang ikan Patin tastes better. Jelawat too.
It seems its got to do with the Pahang river.
Sigh... what a sad news. Whatever way the mainstream media tries to spin this news tomorrow, one can't help but see this as a 'referendum' in support for Nizar vs Perak Sultan and surely it brings negative signal for the new PM. Certainly not good for Zambry and Najib.
UMNO must realize this is no longer the case of protest votes. But from protest, it has been effectively translated into strong support for PAS and PR.
Dato is spot on once again, PAS is poised to win with a greater majority. How about Dato Seri Najib, maybe try and get some educated people in the Cabinet to boost some credibility.
Just thinking sir.
Sak right on the money again.
What brand is your crystal ball? I want to get one as well!
BN dapat 1 Batang dan hilang dua Bukit.
i think umno people should listen more to sakmongkol.
the only problem is umno is beyond saving. umno is left with people of low quality and questionable morality...for the most part.
he's take on PAS supporters are spot on.
my heartiest congratulatipon to Nizar!
hebat la datuk sak
prediction tepat
Changkat Jering...Pas menang 16++
Kuala Sepetang....Pas menang 22++
Trong....Pas tewas 9++
tahniah PAS
UMNO should take heed of the results.
In fact, they should have done that right after the last GE. ( still blame Pak Lah?)
But poor Pak Lah has rejected emergency meeting for post mortem and UMNO reps are more thinking of their positions at that time rather to work on the ground.
You can see clearly the difference in the way of PR mechanism and tools working to win the people.
We can say a lot of things on the opposition, but they kept working at it.
maybe this is what the day to day people want
So what is the bottom line?
Giant UMNO/BN should emulate and study the down to earth PR mechanism and stop thinking about their ownselves
MM
Dato' Sak,
The moral of the story is you can buy the wakil rakyat but you cannot buy the Rakyat. Period.
TDM dah kempen.Unfortunately the majority of the rakyat were so pissed off with the frog-leaping episode.
We blame the 3 idiotic Aduns for BN's loss!!
Ya, I setuju dengan seorang pengkomen kat sini dia cakap "something seriously needs to be done to address this matter".
You know what has to be done?
Buang UMNO dan kuncu-kuncu BNnya.
Jadikan mereka pembangkang semula di negeri Perak
Jadikan UMNO dan BN pembangkang di peringkat Persekutuan juga
Barulah UMNO mungkin boleh reformasi. Itu pun tak tentu lagi, tapi peluang UMNO reformasi lagi baik bila mereka underdog sebenar, di LUAR kerajaan. Kalau tak, takde semangat membakar nak berubah
Selagi UMNO menguasai Malaysia, selagi itu UMNO tak boleh berubah.
Ini hakikat.
Kena terima.
Wasalam.
To Anon 2213.
Indeed the 3 frogs jumped and created the mess. There was a possible 4th frog but the person decided to remain a homo sapien and resigned instead. The important issue at hand is the question as to what instigated the 3 frogs and a person to jump/resign in the first place. If they had remained with Pakatan till GE13, we would not be here today shaking our heads at the loss of 2 bukits.
Sak
Very thoughtful analysis, unbiased and well-intended.
UMNO will never change if it keeps on going back to its old leaders for inspiration.
UMNO must thin out of the box and actually come out of its own constricted box, behaviour and attitude-wise.
The last UMNO general assembly does not give much promise to ordinary malaysians. The assembly is a clap trap for the already converted UMNO underlings who don't see their future in a more progressive Malaysia but rather they see themselves in an enclosed UMNO.
UMNO's handicap is its 50 year of continuous rule with the last 30 years as one with endemic corruption at the highest level, cronyism that has no boundaries and power abuse without restraint.
UMNO failed to distinguish between itself as only a party in government and its Ministers should have seen themselves as servants of the people and not as servants of UMNO members. For 30 years UMNO Ministers were Ministers of UMNO rather than Ministers of Malaysia.
Unless they can change this behaviour and attitude, UMNO has lost its connection with the new generation of younger voters who have access to the alternate media.
The mainstream media controlled by UMNo and MCA and MIC have past its use-by -date and since March 2008, it has not reinvent themselves. In fact Utusan Malaysia became worse.
The trend now is that UMNO and thus BN will lose in the coming general election. Chinese voters have abandoned MCA and Gerakan and they have embraced PAS where there is a PAS candidate, or PKR or DAP.
UMNO has lost its connection to the Chinese voters and to Indian voters. With split Malay votes, UMNO has virtually no chance to hold power again.
Once again we hear the silly misguided thinking that seeks to blame UMNO's loss to the 3 who leaped into Pakatan.
Yet others say that UMNO is doomed.
I say UMNO is doomed because UMNO looks at the wrong people to diagnose the problem.
For the last 389 days, UMNO was misled into thinking the problem was down to Pak Lah, Khairy and the Keris.
The problem is quite complex. Its time we actually throw away our simplisitc blame centred mentality and confront the following challenges
(O) Stop looking at the past to solve problems in the present!
(I) Start from the bottom up. UMNO leadership at the cawangan
(II) Engage the YOUNG PEOPLE! So far the only person to attempt to that was Khairy. Now many will sneer that, but lets be clear on one thing, he made it an agenda, and right now we need to continue to focus on the agenda, and perhaps improve on the implementation. The idea was right, lets work together to get the implementation right too
(III) Some populisitic policies please. Eradicate a lot of the tol seeking business!
(IV) Get Dato Sak into the Cabinet. Right now, outside the blogging group, few people can appreciate that UMNO actually has some of the best brains around. The problem is they are discarded. A lot of the issues facing our countries can easily be turned and blamed against UMNO if UMNO continues to have Ministers like Syed Hamid Albar or Shabbery who does not have that intellectual capacity and merely plays to the 'kampong mentality.'
(V) The police. Malaysians will never vote for a police nation, so stop acting like one
Lets start using our brains for once, please.
BN were fortunate that Tun didn't go to Batang Ai. Otherwise, it could have been 3-0 to Pakatan.
I like this blogger. I was shocked to learn that he is an active Umno member as.. you know.. I thought Umno bloggers r like.. mykmu, rockybru, bigdog etc
Hope u will abandon Umno and join the rakyat.
Wenger
"Silly, misguided thinking .. let's use our brains .."
Are you saying others don't use their brains except you? Assuming you are young, ardent KJ supporter and all - that's the trouble with people like you. Too free with your words, with your actions. Why don't you try to be respectful of others and be endearing with rural voters, for example. How many of you were helping out on the ground I wonder.
Am not trying to play the blame game here. But let's try to analyse the results and make suggestions without offending anybody.
Instead of having one bad president, UMNO now has 2 consecutive bad president. the later is worse than the former.
that is the reason why umno lost. to clean up umno, you need something clean for obvious reason.
my 1 cent.
Dear Anonymous,
Of course its misguided blaming the loss of BN on 3 ADUNs. If we can't see the woods for the trees, we need some one to point it out.
And I am happy to oblige.
Bye2 UMNO ..
Kj dgn umno youth dgn bn youth tak buat keje ke?
sapa in charge dgn saluran 4 & 5?
tidor ka?
susahlah cam ni kalau org org muda tak suka nengok muka ketua pemuda...
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