IN “hot seat” Sungai Pinang – the only state constituency in Penang with a six-cornered fight – the Pakatan Harapan (PH) incumbent Lim Siew Khim is seeing red after a video claimed she had “cheated” villagers affected by a development.

Her fellow candidate R.S.N. Rayer, who is running for the Jelutong parliamentary seat where Sungai Pinang comes under, is even threatening to take legal action over the Barisan Nasional-linked video.

The video Lim discovered this morning had zeroed in on the eviction problem in the West Jelutong Village. The village had an eviction problem in early 2013 before Lim was even elected in the election that year.

The video, narrated by an unidentified man, claimed Lim had told the villagers that the landowner – a developer – did not have enough units to offer them as compensation, and had bluffed the villagers about a state government housing compensation form.

He also claimed that their houses were in bad condition and the drains in the village had never been cleaned.

“The rocket (DAP-led) state government has not helped the people here for two terms,” the man said in the 4-minute video about the “tragedy of West Jelutong”.

It also had a footage of Barisan Nasional’s (BN) candidate Ng Fook On saying how the residents there felt worried and cheated, and he believed he and his team could look into their plight and worries. The video ended with a message calling for voters to vote for BN.

Lim said the narrator of the video was her former schoolmate at the Beng Teik branch school, adding that the man had been causing trouble since the days of former Sungai Pinang assemblyman Koid Teng Guan, who was in office from 2008 to 2013.

“He neglected to say that it was (former Jelutong MP Jeff) Ooi and I who had intervened and gotten residents from six houses compensation after they were sued in court by the developer for vacant possession.

“He doesn’t want to acknowledge the work we had done. We even held gotong royong in the village and got the city council to clean up the village and fined the landowner,” she said, adding that there was no such thing as a state government form for housing compensation.

When Lim and Ooi stepped in, they brought in lawyer Malkit Singh Randhawa to negotiate with the development firm, which eventually retracted the lawsuit and agreed to offer housing or monetary compensation in lieu.

“The developer wanted to give only RM25,000. We pushed until the amount went up to RM72,500,” she said, adding that there were about 30 houses still in the village with over 20 rented out to foreign workers.

“The people can still live there. The developer is not chasing them out anymore as it is not developing the land yet,” she added.

Rayer said a compensation agreement, which also covered RM2,000 relocation cost and RM500 monthly rent, had already been drawn up in advance to protect the interest of the villagers when they were eventually told to move out.

With all the work done for the residents, Rayer, who is also a lawyer, asked Ng whether he was implying that Lim and Ooi had cheated the people.

“I give him 48 hours to answer. Failing which, we will sue,” he said, adding that Ng should not be stirring the people up.

Lim said the fight to retain Sungai Pinang, which has 26,917 voters made up of 51.5% Chinese, followed by Malays (34%) and Indians (13.8%), was tough as she would lose votes to candidates from PAS, Malaysian United Party, Parti Sosialis Malaysia and an independent who was also contesting.

“It will be a tough fight, but I believe people know what we have done for Sungai Pinang,” said the DAP politician who won the seat by 4,707 votes in 2013. – May 4, 2018.