A WEAKENED Umno and inroads into rural areas in Perak by its splinter party Bersatu, are two reasons the Pakatan Harapan (PH) state leadership is confident it can take the silver state.

Perak PH election director Nizar Jamaluddin told Malaysia Decides the coalition is confident of winning 35 seats in the 59-seat state assembly, which was first won by the opposition under the now defunct Pakatan Rakyat in 2008 but lost to BN a year later through defections.

“We will retain the popular vote and win more seats. When the people of Perak voted for change in 2008, Umno was still intact but now it has disintegrated,” said Nizar, who was Perak menteri besar in 2008.

“Bersatu has been campaigning using Umno’s tactic of small gatherings or ceramah kelompok held in kampungs,” Perak Bersatu chief Ahmad Faizal Azumu, who was formerly with Ipoh Umno.

These small gatherings help Bersatu approach Malay voters more personally with more room for personal interaction, unlike big ceramah that other PH parties like PKR and DAP use.

In fact, PH chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad skipped Perak entirely and campaigned at ceramah elsewhere around the Peninsular. Nizar said the Bersatu chairman came once before the campaign period started.

Secondly, while the recent redelineation of electoral boundaries was meant to benefit Umno, Nizar said it would likely backfire as Umno supporters were shifting to PH.

“The history of 2008 will repeat itself in 2018, and the change will be bigger,” said Nizar.

In 2008, the opposition won 31 seats with 51.1% of the popular vote to form the state government.

BN, after seizing control in 2009, kept Perak in the 2013 election, winning 31 seats with 44.4% of the popular vote. Of the 31 seats, nine were won by less than 1,000 votes.

PKR think-tank Invoke Malaysia is even more optimistic than Nizar.

It predicted that PH will win 38 state seats and 16 out of the 24 parliamentary seats in Perak, based on a survey with 858 voters in the state.

This is due to high non-Malay support for PH and shifting Malay support from BN to PH.

BN will win 21 state seats and eight parliamentary seats, while PAS will be wiped out without non-Malay support, according to Invoke’s findings.

In the campaign period leading up to the polls tomorrow, Malaysia Decides observed that in spite of the often touted popularity of BN’s Perak caretaker menteri besar Zambry Abdul Kadir, his posters were only seen sporadically, even in the Lumut parliamentary seat where he is contesting.

He was dogged by a scandal earlier this year over receiving a RM115,000 bonus and an Audi Q7 worth RM620,996 from a loss-making state-owned company.

Similarly, posters of BN chairman and caretaker prime minister Najib Razak were also fewer and far apart across the constituencies throughout Perak.

Instead, BN is largely banking on its candidates’ local service record to overcome voters’ anger over the rising cost of living and its excesses.

But going by ordinary voters met across Perak, including in Felda settlements, this strategy no longer has as much traction as before as people express an openness to try a new government. – May 8, 2018.