BARISAN Nasional candidate for Lembah Pantai, Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal Abidin, is not the incumbent in this federal seat, but appears to have the upper hand over rivals from PKR and PAS.

The former Federal Territories and urban wellbeing minister has never been an elected representative – he became a minister by way of appointment as a senator – but has made his presence felt in Lembah Pantai despite losing his first bid for the seat in 2013.

Lembah Pantai’s voters have attested to how well he moves on the ground disbursing aid and supplies.

In GE13, he lost to PKR’s Nurul Izzah Anwar, who first won the seat in 2008.

Nurul Izzah is now contesting in Permatang Pauh, and Raja Nong Chik is making use of this to beat down his PKR opponent, Fahmi Fadzil, in Lembah Pantai.

“Why should the voters keep picking PKR? They had the MP role for two terms, selected by Lembah Pantai voters, but she (Nurul Izzah) is now running away to Penang.

“Meanwhile, the one who lost – that’s me – kept on serving the area. I never gave up. She won, gave up, and forgot all about Lembah Pantai. I lost, but still kept on serving,” he told Malaysia Decides.

Raja Nong Chik, 65, said the country’s most urgent issues were poverty, housing, and education.

However, he said that the nation was overall “on the right track because the prime minister (Najib Razak) is doing his best”.

“The opposition is trying to make Najib out to be all negative, but on record he is the most hardworking.

“He goes down to the ground the most and attends to both high-profile and small issues,” he said.

Raja Nong Chik said he would, if elected as a federal lawmaker, fight for better welfare and maintenance of low-and-medium cost housing, of which Lembah Pantai has plenty.

“The maintenance for low- and middle-cost houses is still a big problem. Development in Lembah Pantai must be balanced because there are complaints from people about uncontrollable development in certain areas.” – April 30, 2018.