UMNO and MCA won’t boycott the Tg Piai by-election if they do not get to contest the seat for Barisan Nasional, said their grassroots leaders.

They said social media rumours that the coalition partners would close their respective operation centres in protest should the seat go to the either partner are not true and started by Pakatan Harapan, in particular Bersatu.

BN sources told The Malaysian Insight last night that MCA’s Wee Jeck Seng has the green light to contest the seat. That is yet to be officially announced.

Tg Piai MCA deputy division chief Tan Eng Meng said Monday’s event to announce the BN candidate was not cancelled because of a row between the Chinese and Malay component parties over who gets to contest the seat.

“We are not closing the operational room to boycott. That is what PH is saying. We follow what our leaders have said. We are ready to support whoever the candidate is.”

It was reported last week that BN would name its candidate for Tg Piai on Monday. However, Johor BN chief Hasni Mohamad cancelled the event, saying it was merely a ruse to dupe PH into revealing their candidate first.

Social media was soon afterwards peppered with conflicting messages, some claiming infighting in BN had delayed the naming of the opposition candidate and others congratulating MCA’s Wee on being chosen to represent BN in Tg Piai.

A message was also widely shared urging BN to cancel its decision to field Wee or 58 Umno branches in Johor would boycott the by-election.

Tg Piai Umno Youth chief Syahrulzaman Ibrahim said BN’s rivals invariably spread rumours of boycotts every time there is an election.

“Talk of 58 Umno branches boycotting is just propaganda but I will not deny that there will be talk of a boycott as emotions usually run high before a candidate is named. It is normal.

“If we pick a candidate from Umno, some will be unhappy.  We can’t satisfy everyone. The Malays will get angry but it will be temporary. We will help out in the end when the anger fades,” Syahrulzaman said.

Umno wanted the seat because MCA failed to get Chinese support in the last election, resulting in BN to lose the seat for the first time since its creation, he said.

“Wee is a hardworking man. What caused the defeat was lack of Chinese support for him and MCA. That is why the Malays are angry.

“MCA won in the past because of the Malays. Seats with a Chinese majority, they lost. In such a situation, why should MCA contest?” he asked.

Tg Piai fell vacant after the death of its MP, Dr Md Farid Md Rafik, of heart disease.

In the 2018 general election, Farid of Bersatu narrowly defeated Wee, who had held the seat for two terms. Farid had won by a mere 524 votes more than Wee’s 20,731. The third contender, PAS candidate Nordin Othman received 2,962 votes, 

BN is confident of a win this time around in a straight fight with PAS out of the equation. It believes that the Umno-PAS pact will ensure that the votes that would go to PAS would go to it instead. Based on simple mathematics and the results of the last election, the votes for PAS and MCA combined would outnumber the votes for PH.

Tg Piai has 52,986 registered voters, 26,565 of which are in the Kukup state constituency and 26,421 in Pekan Nenas. The constituents are Malay (57%), Chinese (42%) and Indian (1%). – October 30, 2019.