'Yawns, hiccups marked PAS campaign'

COMMENT On paper, the Bagan Pinang state seat could have been PAS' for the taking, on the simplistic basis that Barisan Nasional (BN) had appeared to have shot itself in the foot by fielding Isa Samad.

There he was, the Umno big fish who had been caught for corrupt practice in 2004, just waiting to be fried by political rivals in the by-election campaign. Surprisingly, PAS let him off the hook.

The much-anticipated attack from the PAS camp was curiously missing, as was sometimes its candidate - Negri Sembilan commissioner Zulkefly Mohamad Omar - from party press conferences.

Over the eight-day campaign, PAS stopped short of revealing all about Isa, the former menteri besar of Negri Sembilan, as it had threatened to. Instead, it stopped at a relatively mild rebuke of his involvement in money politics within Umno.

PAS had dubbed Isa the 'corruption icon' because much of state land had allegedly ended up in the hands of private developers when he was in charge.

Up to the final day, the media waited for PAS vice-president Ayub to spill the beans - but even he had a dull campaign by the party's standards.

At his press conferences, he talked about abuse of postal votes; abandoned hotel projects (which could not be blamed on Isa); an abandoned bus-stop project in Linggi (Isa's former state seat); clogged drains; and the filthy state of the Port Dickson beach. These issues were recycled at the ceramah.

Bewildered observers could only conclude that PAS lacked a strategy as well as fire power to shoot Isa down as an election candidate.

However, PAS did have a plan of sorts. Two weeks before nomination day on Oct 4, its leaders decided at a meeting in party headquarters that Isa would not be attacked before Umno announced his name.

Apparently, this was to lull Umno into fielding Isa as candidate. Once this was done, PAS was to launch a full-scale attack to expose his alleged involvement in corruption.

"PAS got its wish in terms of the opponent. But, in the end, it did nothing about exposing him," said a blogger.

Poor image of PAS

From then, it all went downhill quite quickly for PAS, which compared badly to Umno in several respects during the campaign.

Zulkefly was hardly seen at the party's daily press conference, unlike Isa who made it a point to attend every such event, according to journalists.

When Zulkefly (right) went campaigning door-to-door, he was accompanied by an unknown aide rather than by the leading lights of his party, including parliamentarians.

Isa had no such problems - his companions were no less than Umno ministers, among them deputy premier Muhyiddin Yassin, who rotated the duty among themselves.

PAS deputy president Nasharuddin Mat Isa only campaigned for Zulkefly on the final day, while party head Abdul Hadi Awang's participation was limited to the start of the campaign.

One ceramah even turned into a public relations disaster. At a ceramah held at 6.5-mile Jalan Teluk Kemang, state PAS information head Hassan Taha grabbed the microphone from a PKR leader during an argument on stage.

A blogger who witnessed this, said: "I don't know the reason for the argument but a public argument involving Pakatan parties presented a poor image that also reflected badly on PAS.

"(PAS) had a golden opportunity to upset BN but blundered due to its lack of strategy and failure to coordinate with its Pakatan partners."

A PKR leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed that his party and DAP were only given a co-starring role in the campaign. They each set up an operations centre although it had earlier been decided that all three allies would operate the election machinery jointly.

"PKR and DAP gave our best effort to PAS. We stayed in Bagan Pinang for eight days to make sure PAS would win. But there was a clear lack of communication and coordination between us and PAS, leading to a lot of hiccups. I feel this is a reason why PAS lost the by-election."

There is no doubt that Bagan Pinang is a BN stronghold. Yet, PAS could have made a huge dent in the margin of victory - if not an upset - if it had gone all out to do so.

Instead, its campaign was a washout and Isa had the last laugh on his arch-rivals.