As PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim has been running around the Kajang constituency for over a month, BN's candidate for the by-election Chew Mei Fun is picking up her pace by making appearance at this satay town later.

While images of both candidates were in huge contrast, the duo tend to adopt different approach in their campaign trails, with Anwar presents his dry sense of humour in nature, and Chew is commonly known as a serious person.

For Anwar, diverse style of campaign works well especially when he has effortlessly performed kuliah, danced and even sang popular Tamil song in a single day last week.

Compared to her competitor, Chew’s campaign trail was a rather plain one as she followed the traditional way of campaigning yesterday, by having a walkabout at a market in the morning, followed by a visitation to a welfare home at Sungai Chua by dusk.

Her schedule was then packed with MCA dinner at Sungai Jelok and ceramah at Kampung Kantan that ended at 11pm yesterday.

At the entire event, Chew was merely shaking hands with constituents, listening to their problems and giving short speeches.

Slams Anwar for misusing public resources

 

In her speech, Chew conveyed essentially the same message to the audience, that the by-election was unnecessary as Anwar abused public resources to resolve the feud between Selangor MB Khalid Ibrahim and PKR deputy president Azmin Ali.

Chew also appears to be well-prepared in her political articulation when it comes to issues of inflation and price hikes, by highlighting the inconsistency of the Selangor state government.

 

Among the examples are the state’s decisions to adjust remuneration for assemblypersons drastically, increase business license fees as well as award local council that collects the highest amount of tax.

In a bid to garner more support, the MCA vice president said she had even moved to Kajang and stayed with the constituents, days after she was appointed by BN to face the battle.

 

With the nomination day approaching, in contrast, Anwar left Kajang as he is scheduled to fly to Japan by this month-end for an international forum, his second attempt to enter the country after the first one was denied last month.

Speaking to a 50-strong crowd during a ceramah organised by Umno in Kampung Santan, Chew said she stayed at Kajang after accepting BN’s appointment as candidate last Friday.

“Since that day, I sleep here, (and campaign) from day to night until we gain back the support,” she said.

She pointed out that Anwar would not be able to perform his multiple roles, who is now Permatang Pauh MP, Pakatan Rakyat top leader, opposition leader as well as PKR de factor leader.

“I doubt if he has time for Kajang,” said Chew.

Pakatan is crowing chicken

 

The mudslinging does not stop when Deputy Finance Minister Ahmad Maslan, who attended ceramah along with Chew, delivered his speech and challenged Pakatan to lower petrol price at its administered states.

The Umno information chief described Pakatan as crowing chickens that never act.

“We always hear thousands of chickens keep crowing at Selangor, Penang and Kelantan, they want to lower petrol price but there is never an outcome,” he quipped.

“Didn’t they (Pakatan) promise to lower petrol price after ruling? Why not implement it in Selangor, Penang and Kelantan? They can spend billions to subsidies to make the price down.

“By then, Malaysians from all over the country will come to Selangor for petrol refill, and the state government will have to declare bankruptcy less than a month. They think this is easy,” said Ahmad.

 

The Kajang by-election will take place on March 23, which is the result of the "Kajang move", a gambit devised by Pakatan Rakyat to install Anwar as the next menteri besar.