KUCHING, Jan 27: Former Batu Lintang assemblyman Voon Lee Shan has attributed the loss of Pakatan Harapan in the Cameron Highlands by-election on Saturday (Jan 26) to voters’ support for the Pahang government.
“The people still favour (Pahang) state government under their Menteri Besar (Datuk Seri Wan Rosdy Wan Ismail), who would be able to serve them better rather than Pakatan Harapan (PH) at the federal level,” said Voon in a statement today.
He reckoned the failure of PH to make good its election manifesto was also one of the reasons why BN could retain the seat.
“PH was not able to deliver their promises as stated in their manifesto,” said Voon.
He said BN’s candidacy might also be one of the factors as the candidate was an Orang Asli, who is a former police officer.
The last factor, he stated, was the good cooperation between BN and PAS.
“BN (Barisan Nasional) and PAS were able to cooperate, where PAS did not put their candidate, which resulted in a vote swing in favour of BN,” he said.
BN candidate Ramli Mohd Nor won the by-election with a majority of 3,238 votes against PH’s candidate M. Manogaran. Ramli, thus, became the country’s first Orang Asli MP.
Ramli garnered 12,038 votes, Manogaran (8,800 votes), independent candidates Sallehudin Ab Talib (314 votes) and Wong Seng Yee (276 votes). Both Sallehudin and Wong lost their deposits.
The turnout rate was 68.8 per cent.
The by-election was called after the Election Commission (EC) nullified BN’s victory in Cameron Highlands during GE14 (May 9, 2018), citing corrupt practices of luring voters. — DayakDaily
