THE mother of all Malaysian by-elections will be held this month on mainland Penang (not the island). Opposition politician Anwar Ibrahim will stand in the Permatang Pauh constituency left vacant by his wife, who stood down.
The Election Commission announced that there will be 10 days of campaigning from August 16th. This compares with 13 days of campaigning in the March general elections.
And in the middle of this, police have just served notice to Datuk Seri Anwar today to be in court by 10am tomorrow. He is expected
to be charged for sexual assault of his former aide.
The court charge aside, so much is at stake for both Mr Anwar and the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition led by Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi.
The seat, being a Malay-majority constituency, is expected to see an Umno candidate being fielded from among the 14-party BN. But Umno has so far searched in vain for someone who could pose at least a strong challenge to Mr Anwar.
Umno is widely expected to field a 'local' party chieftain, but who is not expected to dent Mr Anwar's chances much.
Permatang Pauh is the safest seat for his party, Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR). It was Mr Anwar's constituency until he was sacked from government in 1998. His family home is located here.
The racial background of the voters is often important in elections because one can usually gauge how well a party would do. In the past, for example, most Malays and Indians in rural or semi-urban areas will vote BN. Rural Chinese will be mixed. So in most areas, except Kelantan state, the opposition could only hope to win if they could pull away the Malay voters from BN.
But since the last elections, things have changed.
One can expect most Indians and Chinese to vote for the opposition. The Malay vote is expected to be split between PKR and Umno.
His win would deal a huge blow to BN as he would then become a Member of Parliament again after an absence of 10 years.
With one third of the MPs already from the opposition bench, Anwar is expected to lead them to cause bigger headaches for the government. The next date that people will watch out for then is September 16th, by which time he has said he would topple the BN government.
The government could therefore be expected to pull out all stops to derail his plans. So if for some reason Mr Anwar were to lose, then his bandwagon will be totally deflated.
And the opposition would be in disarray.
Although nominations will only happen next week, campaign workers have begun descending in the area. Many hotels around Permatang Pauh, a semi-urban constituency, are already booked full for the period. The nearest big towns in the area are Seberang Perai, Kulim, Butterworth and Bukit Mertajam.
As in previous by-elections that I have covered, expect massive traffic jams in coming days as police put up security roadblocks. The happiest people are usually the restaurant owners who can expect hungry crowds 24hours a day from today until one day after polling day.
Let the Democracy Festival begin, though do expect some dirty tricks and surprising turns.
Anwar Ibrahim in Permatang Pauh.
Source: The Star
Permatang Pauh by-election
Nomination Day - August 16th, Saturday
Polling Day - August 26th, Tuesday
Number of registered voters: 57,969
Postal voters: 490
Racial background:
Malays 69.4 per cent of voters.
Chinese 24.5.
Indians 6.0.
Others 0.1.
(Source: Malaysiakini data)