Penang Umno chief admits odds against BN in Permatang Pauh fight BY OPALYN MOK

GEORGE TOWN, April 1 — Umno will face an uphill battle to win back the Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat, conventionally a PKR stronghold, but believe voters will be wiser with their choice of MP this time around, said Umno’s Datuk Seri Zainal Abidin Osman.The Penang Umno liaison chief admitted Umno will be the underdog in the imminent by-election, but added the party is well prepared to wrest the seat back from Pakatan Rakyat (PR).

“We have discussed with Umno Permatang Pauh to identify several possible candidates to be proposed for consideration by the Barisan Nasional (BN) leadership,” he said in a statement in response to calls for his comment on Umno’s preparations for the by-election.

The Election Commission declared the Penang parliamentary seat vacant today after an application for a royal pardon for incumbent MP Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was rejected.The 68-year-old is currently serving a five-year jail term for sodomy in the Sungai Buloh Prison.“We have shortlisted several local candidates who are from Permatang Pauh and all new faces but familiar to locals,” Zainal said.

For now, he said the BN leadership has yet to ask for an official list of proposed candidates.He added that Penang Umno and the state BN started preparations for the by-election as soon as the Federal Court made its decision to uphold the appellate court’s conviction of Anwar on February 10.Zainal Abidin said they would now speed up preparations to face the by-election after the Dewan Rakyat speaker declared Anwar disqualified as MP.When contacted, Permatang Pauh Umno division chief Datuk Mohd Zaidi Mohd Said said he believed constituents in the area are already fed up with the frequent by-elections for the seat.

PKR has held the Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat for 17 years since Anwar’s first incarceration in 1998. — Picture by KE Ooi
Anwar reclaimed his old seat in a by-election in August 2008, five months after the general election that same year, after his wife Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, who is also PKR president, chose to step down as Permatang Pauh MP.

Mohd Zaidi is also confident that Umno would benefit from the infighting in PR, especially between PAS and DAP, during the by-election.“PAS supporters may decide to vote for BN or not vote at all to punish PKR for supporting DAP in insulting their party president,” he told Malay Mail Online.

He said the division by-election machinery is ready to swing into action and its members are in high spirits to wrest the seat back from PR.“This is the right time for the people of Permatang Pauh to vote for a change,” he said.PKR has held the Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat for 17 years since Anwar’s first incarceration in 1998.Prior to that, Anwar had held the seat for four terms, under the Umno ticket, since 1982.Dr Wan Azizah led the newly formed PKR in 1998 to win the seat and she held it for three terms, until she voluntarily stepped down in July 2008 once Anwar became eligible to stand for elections again.Anwar held it for two terms under PKR until he was disqualified today.