What to avoid in Permatang Pasir.

The danger of a near miss is that it makes you overconfident. Hence in his rousing speech when announcing the BN candidate for Permatang Pasir, DPM Muhyiddin said he was congratulated for a near win in Manek Urai. He said it was strange for him to get congratulatory messages for a loss. You can't miss the gloating he made. He was referring to the near miss of BN winning Manek Urai last month.

I have written about the danger of treating Manek Urai being a swallow amounting to a summer. There were many unique factors in Manek Urai you can't find in Permatang Pasir. There, it was almost 100% Malay constituency with a substantial portion coming from KESEDAR schemes. People in land schemes are easily controlled and disciplined. My personal reading is, if despite the large number of KESEDAR voters, you can't win, there is no reason to crow.

In Permatang Pasir there are no FELDA or KESEDAR clones.

There was also another peculiar tactic in Manek Urai. There was a long pause between the vacancy in the seat and nomination and voting day. The long pause allowed UMNO ground troops to carry out sterling campaign.

UMNO strategists have forgotten this. I would have liked to see the legally allowable period between vacancy and nomination and voting be pushed to the maximum. That will allow the UMNO Permatang Pasir troops to replicate what was done at Manek Urai.

Kelantan had Mustafa Mohamad, a blameless soul not easily disliked even as he looks nerdy. Permatang Pasir has the warlord ketua bahagian Jalil Abdul Majid. According to a political activist, Firdhaus Christopher Abdullah, Dato Jalil who is regarded as the UMNO warlord is generally disliked by voters. He also mentioned the displeasure put up at Zaid Hamidi's shortlisted candidates. Rohaizat Othman may not have his work cut out for him after all.

The campaign in Manek Urai was an exercise in humility. That must have been very difficult for UMNO- to behave humbly that is. UMNO campaigned less nosily save for the pomposity of UMNO's information officer. I am almost moved to ask him, wak lan, aren't you going to tap a rubber tree or stay at locals' houses this time? If there's no tree, do a samy vellu- plant a rubber tree and then tap it.

That night I watched the announcement of the candidate. DPM Muhyidin was in his most strident form. Continuing his harangue on Anwar Ibrahim, the man whom he once loaned his oversized batik shirt, he repeated his drumbeating. He made oblique reference to the fact that Permatang Pasir is in Permatang Pauh and UMNO promises to deliver a loss to the former DPM.

But DPM Muhyiddin is also a man on trial here. His recent utterances to his former team wawasan leader will be the subject of trial in the people's court. You are coming into the man's area, trying to strike a chink in his armour and you want to call him names?

He has called Anwar a traitor to the Malay race. I am an UMNO man- I can't convince myself to label another Malay a traitor to his race just because I find him disagreeable. Probably he meant traitor to UMNO. Then Muhyidin might as well categorised over 1 million UMNO members who did not vote UMNO candidates in the last GE as traitors. He would have to include, those over 3 million Malays, who did not vote UMNO as traitors too. If there were more Malays who did not vote UMNO in the last election, then UMNO is in reality, a minority Malay party.

DPM's Muhyiddin's approach contrasted sharply with the proposed subdued way in which the UMNO candidate, Rohaizat Othman, wishes to carry out. He wants to merendah diri, the DPM wants to thunder. He wants to respect his opponent; the DPM wants to impale the Permatang Pauh giant.

UMNO has about 5300 members in this bahagian. In the last election, its candidate secured a marginally higher number of voters than its members. Its candidate then, Ahmad Sahar Shuib got 5500 votes. That meant only 200 extra votes were secured by its members. UMNO members in this bahagian tidor kah? Since 2008, has the UMNO bahagian worked hard to convert a far bigger number to its cause? The other component parties have negligible membership not capable at all of making any impact on the 5500 non Malay voters.