BN chose state assemblyman as candidate for Permatang Pauh

By Wan Hamidi Hamid
Political editor
AUG 14 — He is the best candidate the Barisan Nasional can offer to take on Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim; and to a certain extent, he is.

Datuk Ariff Shah Omar Shah, the Seberang Jaya state assemblyman, has been named as the BN candidate for the Permatang Pauh parliamentary by-election on Aug 26.

It is also a rarity for the peninsular BN to put up a candidate who's already a wakil rakyat, especially in a constituency where Umno has 17,000 members. Surely it should be a case of being spoilt for choice.

But as Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak, who announced the candidacy in Seberang Jaya last night, had said, two-term assemblyman Ariff Shah, 52, was the best candidate to take on the Parti Keadilan Rakyat de facto leader.

For one, Ariff Shah is the only BN candidate in the three state assembly seats within the Permatang Pauh parliamentary constituency who survived the March 8 political tsunami.

Another factor is that he's the quintessential politician — a nice, friendly and good humoured person. He is also seen as a hardworking assemblyman who is quite approachable. In other words, he's a good wakil rakyat.

During the last general election campaign, he was among the very few BN candidates who were seen stopping by the opposition's pondok panas or campaign booths to shake hands and have coffee with the party workers.

His command of Mandarin and Hokkien is legendary, and he has even sent his children to Chinese schools.

During the 2004 general election, Malaysians' generous mandate to the then new Prime Minister also gave first-time candidate Ariff Shah a thumping majority of 4,464 votes over the well-known figure Dr Mansor Othman, who was then Penang PKR chief.

However, Abdullah's unpopularity later also cut Ariff Shah's majority to only 553 votes to an unknown Ramli Bulat of PKR, and most of the votes he received were said to be from postal votes.

With Anwar planning the final chapter of his political comeback via Permatang Pauh after his wife and three-term MP Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail vacated the seat, any BN candidate is in for a very tough fight.

Not only the locals are happy to see the return of their prodigal son but they also know that Ariff Shah was once supporting Anwar when the latter was deputy prime minister and a heartbeat away from occupying Putrajaya.

Yet, any other candidate than Ariff Shah would have spelled trouble for the BN.

As widely speculated before, the option of Permatang Pauh Umno chief Datuk Abdul Jalil Majid, who lost his bid to defend his Penanti state seat, would not entice fence-sitters although he was the preferred choice of the Umno division.

His deputy Datuk Pirdaus Ismail, the former National Mosque imam who has the dubious honour of losing twice to Wan Azizah apart from not being local and allegedly does not spend much time in the constituency, is a sure case to be third time unlucky

The name of Ezam Mohd Noor, former PKR Youth chief, was just a media ploy. He's even more of an outsider than Pirdaus.

In the present scenario, Ariff Shah does not have much to lose personally. Win or lose, he's still the state assemblyman. He's also known for his record of servicing his constituency and anyone who has visited his service centre in Seberang Jaya will be easily impressed with his community work.

But can he win the by-election?

Najib, who is also BN deputy chairman, is confident that he can and Ariff Shah himself is confident he had a good chance to wrest the seat lost to Wan Azizah since 1999.

However, Najib's tone when explaining the reason for voters to support the BN candidate seemed to send an underlying signal.

"I hope all the unselected candidates will give full support and work together in mobilising the party's machinery to ensure BN’s victory. During the campaign, don't push aside the selected candidate although in our division we are not supporting him.

"Don't look at him as the enemy," Najib said, alluding to the Umno divisional polls where Ariff is among candidates jockeying to lead Permatang Pauh in a tough race with Abdul Jalil, who has received 16 nominations, Pirdaus 14 and former deputy division head Datuk Ahmad Saad five.

Umno leaders understand very well the delicate situation when a division is embroiled in a fierce contest; not only it is full of bickering and back-biting, it also exposed to rampant money politics or bribes.

"We have to strive to achieve success and we should not entertain other considerations and we should not think who will become Umno division chief and so on. Instead, think of the strategy to win this by-election," added Najib in a clear message of putting everything the BN has to fight Anwar and deny his political comeback.

The Permatang Pauh Umno division has decided to postpone all branch meetings until after the by-election. Party branches throughout the country are conducting their annual meeting and branch polls as well as elections of representatives to the divisional meetings in October.

While Ariff Shah may have to fend off internal fights and sabotage, he also needs to convince voters in the more rural Penanti and Permatang Pasir to vote for him.

The problem for him in the semi-rural Penanti is that the assemblyman is PKR's Muhamad Fairuz Khairudin, Penang deputy chief minister who won with a comfortable majority of 2,000-plus votes to beat Abdul Jalil, who is expected to mobilise support in his state seat.

For the more rural Permatang Pasir, the state constituency has been synonymous with Pas since 1999. Three-term incumbent Mohd Hamdan Abdul Rahman, also Penang Pas deputy commissioner, is popular with his constituents.

Even in Seberang Jaya, Ariff lost a lot of votes he gained in 2004. His only ammunition is his serving wakil rakyat badge of honour. But with inflation, high cost of living and higher fuel price, there's nothing much he can do if voters are still in their political tsunami mood.

Even if he wants to utilise his language skills with the help of the MCA and Gerakan to woo Chinese voters, he is facing a big team of Chinese-majority DAP leaders campaigning for Anwar.

Popular Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, who is also the MP for nearby Bagan, is also expected to campaign regularly for the PKR de facto chief.

This is one by-election where the BN candidate needs help not only from Najib but also the Prime Minister whose neighbouring constituency is the Kepala Batas parliamentary seat.

Even if he loses as expected to his former political compatriot, at least Ariff Shah can hope to reduce the 13,000-plus majority votes garnered by Wan Azizah in the last elections.

Excerpt from http://themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/headlines/42-lead-stories/2943-bns-ariff-shah-first-impressions