(Media Conference Statement in Teluk Intan on Monday, 19th May 2014)

Unlike the Bukit Gelugor by-election nomination a week ago, when the entire Barisan Nasional leadership and not just the MCA leaders, ran for cover for fear of getting a “drubbing” in the Bukit Gelugor by-election on May 25, there has been a show of force of the UMNO/Barisan Nasional leadership in the Teluk Intan by-election today with the Deputy Prime Minister and UMNO Deputy President, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin leading the team.

Why the stark difference?

The reason is very obvious. The UMNO/BN leadership is supremely confident that DAP has made a “fatal error” in fielding Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud and that the BN candidate, Datuk Mah Siew Keong, Gerakan President, is set to win the Teluk Intan by-election on May 31 – reasons why the Umno/BN leaders dare to show their faces as compared to the Bukit Gelugor by-election nomination last Monday.

In fact, the UMNO/BN leadership believes that they can deliver the DAP/Pakatan Rakyat a major blow in the Teluk Intan by-election, as they will be able to attack what they regard as the DAP’s “Achilles heel” among the Malays, Indian and Chinese voters in Teluk Intan.

In the 13GE last May, DAP secured the support of 25 per cent of the Malay electorate, who comprise 38% of the electorate.

UMNO/BN believes that in an intense attack of lies and falsehoods against both the DAP and Dyana, they will be able to ensure that the DAP will not even be able to maintain the level of Malay votes DAP secured last year.

DAP leaders have been falsely vilified as anti-Malay, anti-Islam and even being communists, and the vicious personal attacks on Dyana, based on lies and falsehoods especially on the social media, have started even before she was officially announced as the candidate for Teluk Intan.

The BN attack on the Indian voters, who comprise 19% of the electorate, will be equally intense, especially with the “Minister’s card” played by Mah, promising a cornucopia of money for development and projects.n Already MIC have declared that it could ensure that support of 75% of the electorate.

The BN attack on the Chinese electorate will be no less intense – with the “Minister’s card” and promise of cornucopia of money for development and projects, as well as the politics of gratitude to Mah for his past services as State Assemblyman and MP for the area.

Furthermore, there will be an extra card, that the Chinese must vote for a Chinese and not for Dyana, a Malay candidate.

This is all politics of the past, the politics of race which Malaysians must break away if we want to introduce the new politics where politics is based on Malaysian identities rather than communal identies.

For these reasons, the DAP has a very uphill battle, and I will rate the DAP’s chances of winning Teluk Intan by-election as 40% to 60%.

Pakatan Rakyat parties must reach out to the Teluk Intan electorate in the next 12 days of the by-election campaign to explain why they should prove the UMNO/BN leaders wrong and that 57 years after Merdeka in1957, it is time for the voters to vote as Malaysians and not as Malays, Chineswe or Indians, and the qualities of an MP is not whether he is a Chinese, Malay or Indian, but whether he is a Malaysian who stands firmly for a just, united, democratic, harmonious, prosperous and competitive Malaysia.

The battle in Teluk Intan is a battle between the future and the past, the new vs the old, the politics of Malaysian nationalism against the politics of race.

Mah hopes that the people of Teluk Intan will help save Gerakan, which has been totally rejected in its founding state in Penang.

I call on the people of Teluk Intan to save Malaysia rather than to save Gerakan, for the people of Teluk Intan must “write history and create miracle” a second time in two decades to show the way for all Malaysians the direction to save Malaysia from becoming a failed and divided state.

Can the people of Teluk Intan raise the stakes of the DAP candidate from the present 40% to over 50% in time for a victory in athe May 31 by-election polling?

This is the challenge for the people of Teluk Intan to rise up to the occasion to vote for the country’s future.