Azmin admits police, military voters shifted away from PN in KKB polls

Selangor Perikatan Nasional chairperson Azmin Ali today admitted that the shift in civil servant support, especially the police and military, in the Kuala Kubu Baharu by-election, had an impact on his coalition.

“That had quite a big impact on PN. Not only the early votes among the police and military but also the votes of the Orang Asli in Pertak, the voting district we won before.

“We are investigating this (why the sudden transition) in our post-mortem,” the PN election director told reporters at a press conference at the coalition’s headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

The recently concluded polls saw Pakatan Harapan win back Pertak, a Malay-majority district that it lost to PN in last year’s state election.

However, Azmin denied that civil servants no longer support PN, reasoning that members of the police and military, as well as their spouses, were among those who cast early votes.

“There are no civil service members from other departments involved (in early voting).

“So if we look at it from that point of view, the support from civil servants and government officials towards PN is still strong and we are very grateful to them,” he said.

He added that it showed how civil servants were clearly unaffected by the federal government’s announcement of a 13 percent salary hike for public sector workers.

“This means that civil service personnel are not directly affected by the prime minister’s announcement of a 13 percent salary increase.

“They could also see that this is election candy and it could not convince them that the government is serious about appreciating their sacrifices and contributions to develop this country,” he said.

A Malaysiakini analysis revealed that police voters cast 388 ballots for PN (76.5 percent) and just 119 for Harapan (23.47 percent) in 2023. This was reversed in the Kuala Kubu Baharu by-election, with the voters in blue voting 249 for Harapan (84.1 percent) and 47 for PN (15.8 percent).

The shift in military support for Harapan went from just 27 votes (16 percent) in 2023 to 84 votes (54.2 percent).

PN’s military support dropped from 142 votes (84 percent) in 2023 to 71 votes (45.8 percent)

PN to file petition

Azmin revealed that PN is working on filing a petition over the Kuala Kubu Baharu by-election.

He said all 16 heads of the Kuala Kubu Baharu district voting centres are gathering evidence to be checked by lawyers before the petition is filed.

“PN chairperson (Muhyiddin Yassin) gave instructions to gather all the facts and evidence from the field to be reviewed by our appointed lawyers,” he said.

More serious cases would be selected for a presentation of the petition, he added.

He also claimed that the support of Chinese voters for PN had increased by 3.27 percent in the by-election.

On May 11, Harapan’s Pang Sock Tao was declared the winner in the four-way clash between her, PN’s Khairul Azhari Saut, Parti Rakyat Malaysia candidate Hafizah Zainudin, and independent Nyau Ke Xin.

Pang won with 57.2 percent of votes, and a majority of 3,869 ballots. PN bagged 10,131 votes or 41.4 percent of the ballot.

The by-election was called following the passing of incumbent Lee Kee Hiong on March 20 due to cancer.

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