AS the country gears up for nomination day for the 15th General Election (GE15) tomorrow, there seems to be trouble on the horizon as the Johor Bersatu associates wing has threatened to shut down its machinery in the Segamat constituency if Perikatan Nasional (PN) does not replace its Segamat candidate.
According to an FMT report, wing chairman R. Sivarajah pointed out that grassroots members in Segamat are disappointed with the coalition for naming an “extremely weak and unpopular” candidate, given the fact that his challengers from other parties are “heavyweights”.
Sivarajah warned that if the PN candidate P. Poobalan is not replaced, the party workers would not be on the ground during the campaigning period.
“Poobalan is no match for big names like Barisan Nasional’s (BN) M. Ramasamy, who is the MIC treasurer,” he told FMT.
“As for PKR, its Supreme Council member R. Yuneswaran has been nominated. And the former MP there, Datuk Seri Edmund Santhara Kumar, is standing for Parti Bangsa Malaysia (PBM).”
Sivarajah told the news portal that with these big names, Poobalan might even lose his deposit. To make things worse, he has no political experience, is not popular in the constituency and has yet to set up the election operations centre despite being named the candidate three days ago.
Meanwhile, the Segamat Bersatu associates wing chief also said PN is lagging far behind in Segamat when it comes to reaching out to the people. This is compared to BN and PH whose machinery were observed to already be at full steam.
Sivarajah noted that if PN hoped to win Segamat, they should consider fielding the national associates wing’s chairman Dr Chong Fat Ful in Segamat.
In the 14th General Election (GE14), Santhara won the Segamat parliamentary seat on a PKR ticket against then MIC chief Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam by a 5,476-vote majority.
It was reported last night that Santhara will be defending the Segamat seat for PBM in the Nov 19 national polls.
He previously defected to Bersatu and was appointed its associates wing chief following the events of the Sheraton Move, which had led to the collapse of the Pakatan Harapan government in 2020.
He left Bersatu to join PBM last month. – Nov 4, 2022
