With the clock winding down to midnight, today's campaign between PAS and Umno for the Manek Urai state seat went at a lighter pace after an intense eight-day campaign.

Deputy Prime Minister,Muhyiddin Yassin along with Kelantan Umno chief Mustapa Mohamed and other senior party members such as Malacca Chief Minister Mohd Ali Rustam and Perak Menteri Besar Zambry Abdul Kader opted to attend a number of small functions to meet the voters.

Meanwhile, PAS and its Pakatan Rakyat partners, especially PKR with its de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim, also organised a few small functions including a get-together with party workers at the Islamic party’s campaign headquarters.

manrek urai umno ceramah mustapa and annuar 060709 05 Umno has been very focused in its message to voters of this remote constituency - that Kelantan lacks development after 19 years of PAS rule, the Islamist party's ‘unholy’ partnership with DAP, the cracks in Pakatan Rakyat, the rival party’s proposal for unity talks, and that Umno is outdoing PAS in the implementation of Islamic and development policies.

Umno has also questioned the PAS candidate’s low education background and his ‘fishmonger’ occupation and went personal against Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat with a photo depicting Nik Aziz's four-wheel drive along side with the dilapidated house of an elderly woman.

On the other hand, PAS and its Pakatan partners touched on the issues of ministers abusing their official position by using government cars and helicopters, Kelantan's claim to oil royalty, BN's derogatory remarks against its candidate and on-going corruption issues such as the Port Klang Free Zone, former Selangor menteri besar Dr Mohd Khir Toyo's mansion and lately Muhyiddin's ‘bribe’ to build a new bridge in the constituency.

At a ceramah last night, Nik Aziz told a crowd of 5,000 people that he had issue a directive barring all his state cabinet members and other party leaders from using their official cars.

“They have been instructed to use their own personal cars as this is a party campaign and not their official vehicles,” he said.

“This is why we are different from Umno as their ministers would use their official cars and make exorbitant claims. We are an Islamic party and know such acts are wrong,” said the party spiritual leader.

Will the crowd translate into votes?

Most of Umno ceramah over the past few days have been poorly attended. Even if they were well-attended, most in the crowd were from other party divisions.

NONE In contrast, many of PAS ceramah appeared well-attended by villagers from Manek Urai. Even local enterpreneurs are making a bee line to set up stall at PAS rallies as they could earn better income.

It would be interesting to see whether the bigger crowd at its ceramah would translate into votes for the Islamist party.

PAS has won Manek Urai 10 out of 12 general elections. PAS has another factor in its favour - that of their late elected representative Ismail Yaacob.

Ismail had contested this seat five times and won all five. Before the start of every ceramah, PAS would screen a short video and play a local song of Ismail, who is affectionately known as Pak Su Weil.

To further tap sympathy among voters, PAS has honoured the popular local leader by naming the main road leading to Manek Urai ‘Jalan Pak Su Weil’.

Nik Aziz confident of victory

Party insiders have claimed that the Islamist party may have already secured 58 per cent of the voters. Even Nik Aziz said last night that Manek Urai was PAS to lose.

NONE However, Nik Aziz expressed fear of phantom voters and he questioned the heavy presence of 3,000 policemen in the constituency over the past couple of days.

Political observers believed that Muhyiddin's ‘vote for Umno, get new bridge’ ploy may have backfired.

While some Umno leaders have conceded that they may not be able to wrest the seat from PAS, they hope that slashing its winning majority could serve as a morale booster for their party.

Umno is fielding its Kuala Krai Youth chief Tuan Aziz Tuan Mat, 39, as its candidate, while PAS is banking on its Kuala Krai treasurer, Mohd Fauzi Abdullah, 50.

Manek Urai has 12,293 voters of whom 99.2 percent are Malays, while the remainder are Chinese and Indians.

Balloting starts tomorrow morning at nine polling stations. The result is expected to be known by 8pm.