CAMPAIGNING in the Malacca state elections, which entered the sixth day today, saw a packed schedule that included top leaders of the various parties showing up to help their respective candidates.

With just six days left before polling, this final stretch will be akin to a sprint as the parties and individuals who are contesting adopt a more aggressive approach, with some listing nothing fewer than 14 face-to-face programmes a day and this does not include the online campaign being mobilised by their party machinery.

This is to ensure the campaigns fully cover every location, be it villages, housing estates or social activity centres before polling day on November 20.

The first week of campaigning was quite slow and more focused on the use of social media as well as vehicles fitted with loudspeakers, besides a few small-scale face-to-face campaigns in accordance with the stipulated standard operating procedure (SOP).

Among the social activities were breakfast, lunch or afternoon tea events, visits to party operations rooms and district polling centres, meetings, prayers, meet-ups with residents and walkabouts at night markets.

Neither the young nor the old candidates took the easy way out as none wanted to be seen as a “loser”. They are well aware that an election campaign can be very tiring, what with their programmes beginning early in the morning and not ending until way past midnight.

That’s why the government’s decision to allow all parties, including the independents, to air their portraits and biodata on Radio Televisyen Malaysia from tomorrow is such a relief for all the candidates.

To convince the voters, Barisan Nasional (BN) has made it compulsory for all its 28 candidates to sign a statutory declaration (SD) to prevent them from leaving the party after winning while Perikatan Nasional (PN) has made it mandatory for its candidates to sign the SDs as a commitment to fighting corruption if they are given the mandate. 

Other than that, BN further strengthened its commitment by launching its manifesto on Wednesday while Pakatan Harapan (PH) became the second party to do so on the same day.

PN is set to announce its manifesto tomorrow while Parti Perikatan India Muslim Nasional, which is contesting the Machap Jaya seat, will do so next week.

Parti Bumiputera Perkasa Malaysia, meanwhile, confirmed that it will not launch any manifesto and, instead, its candidates who are contesting five state seats – Gadek, Paya Rumput, Pengkalan Batu, Duyong and Sungai Ramai – will announce their own manifestos.

“If we contest half the state seats, surely we will announce, but we are contesting five seats only. So, no manifesto will be launched. Instead, the candidates will announce their own as part of their commitment to the areas they will be contesting in,” its president, Ibrahim Ali, said.

There is no doubt that the special SOP announced by the Election Commission on November 8 for the polls, which triggered a sense of unease among political leaders, is seen as making things difficult because the campaigning has to be carried out in extraordinary circumstances. 

As the saying goes, if there’s a will, there’s a way, and political parties have to accept the SOP as a reality and carry out their campaigning in accordance with the current situation, with the country still struggling to contain the Covid-19 epidemic.

People’s power is what will be the decider and it is getting closer to the D-Day but, with the SOP proving to be a constraint, parties and individuals contesting the polls will have to redouble their efforts to gain the trust of the people.

Malacca has 28 state seats and 495,195 registered voters. – Bernama, November 13, 2021.