The BN campaign headquarters in Manik Urai BY any account, PAS’s marginal victory in Manik Urai is virtually a loss for the party. Its winning margin has been slashed by a whopping 1,287 votes, from 1,352 votes in 2008 to a wafer-thin 65 votes on 14 July 2009. In percentage, the decline is all the […]
Manik Urai by-election
PAS’s slim victory in Manik Urai
By Zedeck SiewMohd Fauzi Abdullah (with pink tag) and other PAS leaders celebrating their narrow win TALKING to reporters after PAS candidate Mohd Fauzi Abdullah was officially announced as the victor in the Manik Urai by-election, PAS treasurer and Kuala Krai Member of Parliament Dr Hatta Ramli quoted former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. “As Mahathir […]
Polling in Manik Urai
By Zedeck Siew
KUALA KRAI, 14 July 2009: Polling for the Manik Urai by-election began today at 8am at nine polling stations and would continue until 5pm. As of 1pm today, voter turnout was about 76%, or 9,359 of the 12,293 registered voters. As both PAS candidate Mohd Fauzi Abdullah and Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate Tuan Aziz Tuan […]
Status quo in Manik Urai
By Zedeck SiewThe bridge connecting Manik Urai Lama with Manik Urai Baru. Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin would promise on 12 July to build a new bridge — on the condition that the Barisan Nasional was voted in ON 12 July 2009, after a final rally for the Manik Urai by-election campaign, PAS spiritual leader […]
Sedate in Manik Urai
By Zedeck Siew
THE 10-day-long campaign period for the Manik Urai by-election has been quite sedate, with few hard issues gaining any traction in this rural constituency in Kelantan. The campaign trail was peppered instead with the question of Kelantan’s petroleum royalties; the absence of PAS deputy president Nasharuddin Mat Isa from party campaigns until 11 July 2009; […]
PR’s strategy in Manik Urai
By Zedeck SiewDESPITE earlier indications that the Manik Urai contest would hinge on local, bread-and-butter issues, leaders on both sides of the political divide have been reminding constituents of the by-election’s wider significance. On 6 July 2009, Kelantan Umno chief Datuk Mustapa Mohamed told the residents of Laloh that the Manik Urai fight — should the Barisan […]
The BN’s doublespeak in Manik Urai
By Zedeck SiewView of BN flags on the ceiling IN George Orwell’s seminal work of dystopian fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four, the totalitarian Ingsoc government employs, among its slogans, the phrase “Freedom is Slavery”. Orwell, who wrote at length about how “language can corrupt thought“, is credited with popularising the concept of “doublespeak”: language deliberately constructed to distort its […]
“No need for highly qualified candidate in Manik Urai”
KOTA BARU, 1 July 2009: The people of Manik Urai who go to the polls to pick their state assemblyperson are not in dire need for a highly qualified candidate, said PAS Kelantan election director Abdul Fattah Harun. He said unlike a Member of Parliament, who shoulders much responsibility at the federal level, an assemblyperson’s […]
Those who vote for BN or PAS can go to heaven: Muhyiddin
KUALA KRAI, 19 June 2009: Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Mohd Yassin said today Muslims who vote for either the Barisan Nasional (BN) or PAS have an equal chance of going to heaven. He said what could prevent them from going to heaven was their sins and not their votes for a political party. […]
