Despite the severe defeat suffered by PAS’ Tenang by-election candidate Normala Sudirman yesterday, DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang says it is MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek who has to answer some tough questions.

azlan Chief of them, he said, was whether Chua ( right ) would admit that the additional 10 percent of the Chinese community who voted for PAS, compared with the 2008 general election, were choosing Pakatan Rakyat’s common policy and not the Islamic state Chua had been harping on.

“(Will) Chua have the political courage to tell Umno that the increased Chinese support (for the opposition) is not for hudud or an Islamic state but for Pakatan's policies for change, justice, democracy and progress?

“Or is (he) going to continue to misinterpret and distort the political wishes and hopes of the Tenang voters by persisting in the false and fraudulent claim that the increased 65 percent of Chinese voter support for the Pakatan candidate is support for hudud and an Islamic state?” he asked in a statement today.

The Ipoh Timor parliamentarian added that while MCA was boasting that it had won over three out of four areas with Chinese majorities, it failed to realise that only 35 percent chose BN, despite the locality being Chua’s home ground.

dap 2010 budget rocket cafe 071009 lim kit siang 01 Chua was MP for Labis, where the state seat of Tenang is located, prior to 2008, after which he gave way to his son Chua Tee Yong.

“In the Bandar Labis Tengah centre, which has 95.7 percent Chinese voters, Chinese support for PAS and Pakatan increased by 3.2 percent, from 66.7 percent in 2008 to 69.9 percent in the by-election , despite a 20 percent reduction in the voter turnout,” Lim ( left ) said.

Bandar Labis Tengah was the only one of four Chinese majority areas won by PAS, while the others were tough battles which eventually saw close victories for BN.

Low turnout

Lim added that the only reason PAS was unable to slash BN’s 2008 victory was the low turnout in the Chinese and Indian majority areas.

BN enjoyed sweeps in the Felda areas, all of which registered turnout rates of more than 70 percent, which is higher than the overall turnout rate.

NONE Conversely, areas like Bandar Labis Tengah and Pekan Labis saw low turnout rates, some just a little more than 50 percent.

Turnout was equally dismal at polling centres in the estates, which had majority Indian voters.

“I have no doubt that (BN’s majority would have been slashed) if not for the climatic disaster, resulting in incessant rain and heavy flooding.

“(This was) aggravated by selective and discriminatory assistance given by various government agencies ferrying only BN voters to the polling stations,” he said.

The Election Commission has blamed the flash floods for the poor turnout.

Chua hits back

However Lim’s claims were denied by Chua, who insists that the party’s support from the Tenang electorate actually saw “a small increase of support from the Chinese”, while admitting that the turnout was lower than expected.

“Out of the four polling stations with a Chinese majority, we lost three of those in 2008, and now we have won three out of four polling stations,” Chua was reported by MCA online to have told a press conference at the party’s headquarters in Kuala Lumpur today.

He further explained that the only polling station where PAS won, albeit with a lower majority was Labis Tengah, an opposition stronghold since the 90s “due to certain problems related to the area”.

Rebutting opposition claims that Chinese support swung in favour of the Pakatan, he rubbished the claims as due to their frustration at their failure to win Tenang.

He revealed instead that BN had won over 45% of the Chinese ballots despite all the opposition’s intense campaigning.

NONE He pointed to the presence of Pakatan big-wigs in Tenang as proof positive of their feverish campaigning, including DAP leaders, Kelantan MB Nik Aziz Nik Mat ( right ), PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang and opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

“They felt that if Chinese votes for them went up to 90% then they would have a chance. But despite all that, Chinese votes actually went up for us. So I imagine that they have a sense of frustration.

“The fact that the Chinese didn’t go away and there was a marginal increase in support for BN is a good sign,” the party president added.

Regarding calls by the opposition for Soi Lek to resign should BN fail to gain Chinese support in Tenang, Chua chose to look at it as the opposition fearing his good track record since taking over MCA thus far.

“The fact that they keep harping on wanting me to resign only means that I am doing something right. It only means that I am working, and delivering better than what the opposition expected,” he concluded.