Not all joy in Johor — Sakmongkol AK47

AUG 2 — I have deliberately left out analysing my home state Pahang for the moment. Let’s leave the best to last. I want to do a Johor analysis.

Now Johor has always been touted as a bastion of Umno. The Johor Malays seem to have a peculiar obsessive trait with Umno. Since Umno was said to be born on the steps of the Johor Istana, Johor is considered as the natural home for Umno. It’s nearly invincible.

But is it so?

Each morning, the Johor Malay after subuh prayers will have his cup of coffee with his breakfast. What does he read first over all else. He reads Utusan Malaysia, the propaganda mouthpiece of Umno. The dispossessed, the downtrodden Malay masses appear enamoured with Umno.

But what was the figure we read during the last elections? There was a 14 per cent swing to the opposition. What has happened to that swing? It is increasing and getting stronger. This has got the MB worried, intimating to Umno division heads at one meeting that he expects at least nine parliamentary seats and up to 16 state seats will fall to the opposition.

That means he has not discounted fully the swing to the opposition, acknowledging that at best, with all the efforts and the bribery that Umno has carried out, Umno has managed to claim back only some 5 per cent. That will still leave around a 9 per cent swing with the opposition. With that conservative assumption, nine parliamentary seats are indeed in jeopardy.

My own estimate indicates that PR can win outright nine parliamentary seats. The seats currently held by Umno/BN but can be dicey include six more seats of:

1. Tanjung Piai
2. Gelang Patah
3. Pulai
4. Pasir Gudang Tebrau
5. Simpang Renggam
6. Parit Sulong

Really then, the number of parliamentary seats that could end with PR will be between nine and 15.
What does that make Johor? It is no longer a bastion of Umno.

What about Johor Baru which has a sizeable Chinese population who could prove to be a boon to PR? It depends on who is the Umno candidate. If Shahrir Samad chooses to retire, then JB will switch to PR. Shahrir can only be persuaded to stand if the Umno people stokes his contempt for Anwar Ibrahim. He himself is not that confident. He has said privately that most of the faces he sees in JB are not familiar to him.

The other seat which I am interested to see is Pulai. It’s currently held by the chairman of UDA, Nurjazlan Mohamad Rahmat. A decent fellow but has recently been the victim of Umno’s habit of practising infanticide.

It kills off its young talent. When Jazlan came up with a strategy of raising money for UDA with the redevelopment of the Pudu Jail area, he became a victim to the ravenous appetite of Umno warlords ever on the lookout of using government to make tons of money. — sakmongkol.blogspot.com