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In northern Johor, cracks appear in BN's top guns' last line of defence

GE14 | In the last general election, both MIC president S Subramaniam and MCA vice-president Chua Tee Yong narrowly won their parliamentary seats in northern Johor, thanks in large part to Felda settlements that were BN strongholds.

Chua won Labis by a razor-thin majority of 353 votes, while Subramaniam retained Segamat with a 1,217-vote majority.

For Chua, his survival hinged on the three Felda settlements in Labis, which gave him a 3,636-vote edge over the opposition in those areas.

One such settlement was Felda Chempelak, which saw 1,251 votes there going to Chua while only 166 votes went to the opposition in the last general election.

A recent visit to the settlement found that it remains a BN stronghold, but cracks have started to emerge due to a confluence of reasons, such as rising cost of living and corruption issues.

Local settler Atan Abu Bakar, who is in his 60s, was more than happy to declare his allegiance to BN but conceded that opposition sentiment was starting to creep into the once impenetrable BN fortress, particularly among the youths.

"I've told the young people, if it is not for BN, who is going to take care of us? Do we want to go back to the old days when we weren't sure if we could eat and the roads were terrible?" he said.

One settler, Zulkifli Mat, 40, said many youths in the community had been influenced to join Bersatu after former deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin formed the Umno splinter party...

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