The highly charged contest between Barisan Nasional’s candidate Arif Shah Omar Shah who is also the state assemblyman for Seberang Jaya and PKR’s Anwar Ibrahim for the Parliamentary constituency of Permatang Pauh has begun.

In the final round, it will be a three-cornered fight with Akim (Angkatan Keadilan Insan Malaysia) candidate Hanafi Hamat running on an independent ticket.

Dr Mansor Othman, who was initially the fourth candidate, pulled out of the race, thereby forfeiting his RM15,000 deposit.

While Anwar may swagger in confidence, his chances this time around are not as good as he would like to believe, as the following reasons would show.

Generally, in any by-election, the trend tends to favour BN as sampled in the three by-elections in 2007 in Batu Talam, Machap and Ijok. Given this track record, the path looks smooth for BN to win.

BN’s candidate is a Chinese educated local man. His linguistic abilities and being a home-grown boy should endear him to the electorate as he would know the residents’ needs inside out.

Meanwhile, most of the time, Anwar is either in Kuala Lumpur or overseas pandering to western romanticised ideas of what democracy is.

Amidst the price hikes which affect every common hardworking wage earning Malaysian, the electorate may not be too pleased with PKR squandering RM15,000 within such a short span of time to submit Mansor as a spare candidate should Anwar’s nomination be rejected.

To some, RM15,000 maybe a small amount, but ask any wage-earner struggling to eke a living, or hospital patients requiring donations for a surgery, that money could have been better spent on charity.

The submission of Mansor’s candidacy as a spare also indicated that Anwar was fearful, or lacking in confidence.

In the event that Anwar’s nomination was disqualified, it would have been a strategic move to bank on Mansor as a spare candidate. But this strategy in itself is dishonest.

Voters have grown tired of political twists and turns and just want stability and continuity. Hence, they would be turned off by such a nomination submission and flip-flop withdrawal, although it was meant to be PKR strategy.

In reality, this is a low-class stunt and a cheap ploy just to make sure that the PKR candidate’s name appears in the ballot slip.

Voters are able to recognise that the former Permatang Pauh MP, Dato Seri Wan Azizah had already trivialised the democratic process when she resigned from the MP position to make way for her husband’s return to politics. When the electorate voted for Azizah, they voted a Member of Parliament and would not have expected their MP to vacate her seat as she wished.

A photograph in Malaysiakini also showed a PKR supporter wearing a mask of Anwar. Why do people wear masks and what are masks normally associated with? This suggests that Anwar and his supporters hide behind a mask, fearful of revealing their true identity. It also indicates Anwar’s chameleon nature.

Malaysiakini reports that the third candidate for this parliamentary seat, Hanafi is from Akim, a splinter group from PAS. His nomination itself is an indication of PAS’ unhappiness after the March 8 general elections.

If there is a splinter group discontented with PAS, it also shows that they are equally disenfranchised with Pakatan Rakyat. Hence, the only suitable choice voters are left with is still BN.

The Permatang Pauh by-election will be a close call. May it also be clean.