KUALA LUMPUR (April 28): Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) president Mohamad Sabu received a rousing welcome from Pakatan Harapan supporters for his foray into the Klang Valley in the Kota Raja Parliamentary seat today.

Their enthusiasm overshadowed concerns about lower support from the Amanah grassroots over the party’s decision not to field a ‘local’ candidate. The fallout includes the resignation of Amanah’s Kota Raja division chief Jaafar Samsudin recently.

“It is not the candidate who is strong, it is the will of the rakyat,” Mat Sabu told a crowd of Pakatan Harapan (PH) supporters clad in PKR’s red-on-blue colour theme after submitting his nomination.

Mat Sabu will be facing new contestants — MIC Sepang division chief Raja V Gunalan for Barisan Nasional, and PAS Kota Raja division chief Mohamed Diah Baharun.

At the nomination programme, it was mainly a peaceful cheering contest between BN and PH supporters, who largely ignored PAS — now the underdog — leaving the Islamist party on the sidelines.

It sent a signal to PAS, which has lost its incumbent of two terms, Siti Mariah Mahmud, who quit the party to join Amanah in 2015. The nomination day atmosphere showed that it can expect a difficult fight ahead against the splinter party in the days leading to May 9.

However, the significant presence of the Islamist party’s supporters also means that the vote-splitting is a real factor for the candidates to contend with.

Mat Sabu, 64, was elected as PAS deputy president in 2011 — becoming the first person who is not a Muslim scholar to make it to the PAS top leadership — but lost the post in 2015 to Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man.

During his political career with PAS, Mat Sabu won Parliamentary seats three times between 1990 and 1999.

Since 2004, he had lost the last three Parliamentary seats he contested in Kuala Kedah, Kuala Terengganu and Pendang, Kedah — all Malay-majority seats — despite securing more than 45% votes in the last two elections.

He will be taking over as contestant for Kota Raja from Mariah, who has been a representative there since GE11 in 2004.

In GE12, Mariah triumphed against the BN candidate with a majority of 20,751. The gap widened to 29,395 in GE13, despite it being a four-way fight with two other independent candidates.

Many consider that Mariah gained support in the last two previous elections because of the support of non-Malays for the then-Pakatan Rakyat, of which PAS was a member.

She concurred with the view in recent news reports that in GE13, non-Malay votes helped make up for lower Malay support for Pakatan Rakyat from places such as Johan Setia in Klang at the time.

As at April 10, 2018, the number of registered voters in Kota Raja had risen by 40.7% to 149,021 — comprising 43% Malay voters, 28% Chinese and 28% Indians — from 105,909 recorded in GE13.

Average voter turnout in the constituency has risen steadily since the constituency was created ahead of the 11th general election, from 76.67% in GE11 to 87.56% in GE13.

The state seats promise similarly exciting competition.

N48 Sentosa — the first Indian-majority state seat in the country with 43% Indian voters — will host a five-cornered fight including Parti Rakyat Malaysia’s (PRM) N. Telai Ambalam and independent candidate P.S. Rajoo.

Kota Raja MIC chief Datuk R.S. Maniam will lead the charge for BN in the state seat, and PAS will also be fielding an Indian contestant, N. Rajan.

N49 Sungai Kandis, which has turned into a Malay-majority seat following the latest redelineation exercise by the Election Commission, will not be defended by its incumbent PKR vice-president Dr Xavier Jayakumar.

PKR’s Shuhaimi Shafie, who won the Sri Muda seat — now renamed Kota Kemuning — in GE12, will instead be defending the Sungai Kandis seat against BN’s Kota Raja Umno division chief Datuk Kamaruzzaman Jogari, PAS’ Mohd Yusof Abdullah and PRM’s Hanafiah Husin.

Despite news of MCA’s discontent, BN has proceeded to field Klang Gerakan division secretary Jason Tiew — the only Chinese candidate — in another five-cornered fight in Kota Kemuning.

There, he will face favourite V. Ganapati Rao from DAP, as well as PAS’ Burhan Adnan, Parti Sosialis Malaysia’s (PSM) Abdul Razak Ismail and independent S. Rajasegaran.

Mat Sabu was also delighted to share another piece of ‘good news’ for his party.

“Another good news to be shared... Nik Omar [son of late PAS spiritual leader Tok Guru Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat] will be contesting under Amanah in Kelantan,” Mat Sabu told the 200-strong crowd.

“Faiz Fadzil, son of [late PAS president Ustaz Fadzil Noor] is also with Pakatan Harapan. We hope the Malays will be confident to be with us,” he said, to cheers from the crowd.