opinion A by-election is an important barometer to gauge the political inclination of current voters. But the Indera Kayangan bout will also reflect Umno's ability to garner Malay support to counter the possible loss of Chinese votes for MCA as a result of its internal crisis.

Indera Kayangan is destined to be an acid test for Barisan Nasional. Umno, as the major component party, can extend the much needed help by getting the majority of the Malay voters to vote for the MCA candidate.

This is an important issue that should be viewed seriously. All this while, too much emphasis has been placed on MCA. They were always blamed when BN candidates were defeated in constituencies where Chinese voters made up a big portion of the electorate.

Following every defeat would be critical analyses questioning the Chinese support for MCA, the second largest BN component party.

And history appears to be repeating itself in Indera Kayangan. When the seat fell vacant following the death of incumbent Khor Tiang Lee last month, MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik and his deputy cum political nemesis Lim Ah Lek were summoned by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

In a meeting held at the premier's office in Putrajaya, the MCA leaders and their respective followers were told to put aside their differences, and pool all the party resources to ensure a victory for the BN candidate.

In other words, should the candidate fail, MCA will once again shoulder the blame.

Ideally, in any political coalition each component party should be in a position to help one another when the need arises.

In the Jan 19 by-election, BN will be represented by Perlis Wanita MCA chief Oui Ah Lan. The 58-year-old retired school headmistress would be facing Keadilan candidate and retired school teacher Khoo Yang Chong.

With almost equal numbers of Chinese voters (47 percent) and Malay voters (46 percent), half of the former's votes and another half of the latter's votes will bring victory to either BN or Keadilan.

The Indera Kayangan by-election win or loose will reflect the Chinese support for MCA and the Malay support for Umno.

Keadilan's woes

On the opposite side of the fence, Keadilan too has its fair share of problems. A majority of its supporters in Perlis are aligned to the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement or Abim faction in Keadilan.

The anti-Abim campaign during the recent Keadilan party elections may have diluted this group's support for the newly elected party leadership.

The Abim faction were labelled as 'power-hungry individuals who wanted to take control of Keadilan'. This resulted in the defeat of the Abim-aligned members during the party election.

Following this, four Abim-linked members were offered places in the supreme council by party president Dr Wan Azizah Ismail but the quartet Mohd Anuar Tahir, Dr Muhammad Nur Manuty, Ruslan Kassim and Mustafa Kamil Ayub rejected the offer.

A few days ago, Keadilan reappointed Ruslan as the party's information chief and this is perceived to be a last-minute damage control exercise to get the support of Malay voters in Indera Kayangan.

However, Keadilan is not really sure whether this strategy would work. It has decided to take precautionary measures by naming Khoo, who apart from being an ex-teacher is also the leader of the local Buddhist and Cantonese associations, as its candidate.

This shows that Keadilan is counting more on the Chinese community's support to boast its chances of winning the seat.

The move also suggests that Keadilan is trying to be practical in planning its strategy for the by-election, something which has long been adopted by PAS when selecting its candidates.

Only Umno has yet to realise the need to use the same model of selecting election candidates. This has caused the party to loose the states of Kelantan and Terengganu and to a certain extent, it is also losing grip on Kedah.

However, it would be interesting to note how PAS which has been likened to the Taliban will go about campaigning for the Keadilan candidate, especially among the Chinese voters.

It will be more interesting with the possible participation of several DAP leaders in the campaign.

NASH RAHMAN is senior analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM) which produces the subscriber-based political report, Analysis Malaysia. He is a former chief news editor in Berita Harian, editor of now defunct Watan and associate editor of The Sun.