SG BESAR POLLS The DAP campaign machinery for Sungai Besar kicked off immediately after nomination day last Sunday, becoming a “super electioneering team” for the Pakatan Harapan candidate, Azhar Shukur.

Over the last three days, DAP leaders Lim Kit Siang, Tony Pua and Sekinchan assemblyperson Ng Suee Lim have been accompanying Azhar everywhere, from the Ceramah Perdana to meeting with the locals to solicit votes.

Most of their campaign events, including the Ceramah Perdana which was first held on the night of nomination day, took place in Sekinchan - clearly appearing as a DAP strategy to defend its Chinese votes.

With the Sekinchan state seat being held by a DAP representative, most of the Chinese voters there are generally considered to be DAP supporters.

The party’s campaign events, therefore, mostly focus on introducing the party Amanah and its candidate Azhar to the local Chinese.

The presence of the DAP leaders, especially Lim, in this semi-urban constituency more or less helped to attract some crowds to the Ceramah Perdana and increase Azhar's exposure.

However, PKR leaders have seldom appeared in Sungai Besar during the campaign over the past three days. The ceramah last night only saw PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar attending the session as one of the speakers.

Selangor Menteri Besar Azmin Ali, who had even before nomination day pledged to stay in Sungai Besar during the whole campaign period to work for Pakatan Harapan, has not appeared again after nomination day.

'High-impact' programme

On the morning of nomination day, Azmin arrived, rather unexpectedly, to the Harapan officials present, and hugged Amanah chief Mohamad Sabu.

Nevertheless, Nurul Izzah told Malaysiakini that PKR was arranging a best time for Azmin, who is the PKR deputy president, to come to Sungai Besar for a more 'high-impact' programme.

“We are arranging. Tian Chua has coordinated a meeting with most of the leadership to assist.

“We also basically had an operations meeting at the state government level, so we are going to arrange a best date for him to come for a more high-impact programme,” Nurul Izzah said last night, after the Harapan ceramah.

She said Azmin would definitely come to Sungai Besar on certain occasions during the campaign period.

“I think the fact that he came for the nomination really helped to address the issue of PKR’s commitment.

“Tony Pua and Khalid Samad and I have already said in a statement that we are committed to the campaign and that it is important to boost Amanah’s perfomance and to build up for the next general election,” Nurul explained.

A hard sell for Amanah

Harapan’s first Ceramah Perdana, which was held in Sekinchan on the night of nomination day, saw DAP leaders Lim, Pua, Ng and Teresa Kok among the speakers.

They all made efforts to introduce Amanah and Azhar to the crowds while the 'Sekinchan host' Ng even resorted to the  widely-understood, Hokkien, in his talk.

Ng described Amanah as 'a triangle party' and 'Adidas' and called on the Sekinchan Chinese to vote for the Amanah candidate Azhar.

This ceramah undoubtedly targeted the Sekinchan Chinese but the crowd present that night was a mere 300, with more of them starting to leave after Lim ended his speech, leaving about 100 people still present.

This was the first ceramah at which Azhar was presented to the Chinese voters. He just made a very short speech and then came down to shake hands with all the people present.

On the morning of the second day of the campaign, the DAP leaders in a walkabout in the Sekinchan paddy fields with Azhar interacted with a few farmers and also visited the paddy museum.

Lim, who is now 75 years old, even climbed up a paddy cutting machine, together with Azhar. Azhar then drove the machine, while listening to instructions on how to do this from the paddy farmer with them.

After the paddy field walkabout, DAP arranged an interview with Azhar for members of the Chinese media, so as to make the Amanah candidate better known to the Chinese community.

On the early morning of the third day of the campaign, DAP leaders again accompanied Azhar on a walkabout at the ‘pasar pagi’ (morning market) of Sekinchan and to attend dumpling-making event as well.

Many people took photographs with Lim along this walkabout.

Nevertherless, after yesterday’s dumpling event, Lim rushed off to Kuala Kangsar to help in the campaign of the Pakatan Harapan candidate there.

Lim told Malaysiakini that he would be back in Sungai Besar on Friday or Saturday to attend an important talk on the MDB scandal.

Pua said he would go to Kuala Kangsar on Saturday and return to Sungai Besar the next day because he was focusing on the Sungai Besar by-election.

After Lim left for Kuala Kangsar, the DAP campaign in Sungai Besar appeared to have slowed down, and the party did not hold any event with Azhar this morning.