FEMALE and Malay, Young Syefura Othman believes that the issues of unemployment and rising cost of living – and not race – are DAP’s best hopes of wresting control of Dusun Tua in Hulu Langat from PAS in the next general election.

The 27-year-old Syefura, more popularly known as Rara, is DAP’s state assembly coordinator and most likely candidate to challenge Dusun Tua’s incumbent Razaly Hassan of PAS, who won the seat in 2013.

The state constituency consists of 53% Malay voters, 38% Chinese and 7% Indians.

Pakatan Harapan chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad said earlier this month that PAS won many seats in the last general election because of the support from non-Malays, a situation that will likely not repeat itself with the Islamist party cutting off ties with the opposition pact.

However, Syefura, a former nurse, admitted it would be a challenge for her team to reach out to isolated pockets of Malay voters living in areas just within the fringes of Kuala Lumpur.

In the traditional kampung, Syefura said she has been actively organising job training programmes, such as sewing and cooking classes, and has received positive response from many younger voters.

“There are young people who have trouble looking for jobs.

“The trouble is that they keep to themselves. They stay in their own place and even in Facebook, they have their own circle. They don’t look outside.”

She said the issue of race still inevitably crops up, but her team will continue to divert the focus to issues affecting the people’s quality of life and their ability to provide for their families.

“Undeniably, there’s been some stigma at first due to me being in DAP. So, we focus on things that they can relate to and would help them. The younger generation is more receptive to this.

“We want to show that DAP is concerned about people living in the rural areas. We want to remove race-based sentiments.”

At a ceramah last night in Hulu Langat, Syefura also urged voters to consider the repercussions of the goods and services tax (GST) and the country’s financial scandals, such as 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), on their livelihood.

“The cost of everything has increased,” she told an audience of mostly Malay villagers and Chinese traders.

“This is our country. We have a right to ask where our money went to. We need to ask why the billions have gone missing and now our country has to pay for it. Where does the money come from? From people like us.” – September 26, 2017.