BUTTERWORTH: Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) poor showing in the Tanjung Piai parliamentary by-election is a wakeup call for the party to do more for the people.
Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) vice-president Datuk Seri Dr Mujahid Yusof Rawa said PH should be honest to look into the matter and do a post-mortem on why they lost, as suggested by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
“It is important to ensure our core supporters stay with us.
“We need to see where our weak points, that drive people away.
“There are two things that make people don’t vote for us... it could mean that they want to give us a strong message that there are things we have not yet fulfilled, or they want to stress that we, in PH, should do more with the mandate given to us.
“I take this positively and we will discuss this in the PH presidential council,” said Muhajid, who is also minister in the prime minister’s department (religious affairs).
Barisan Nasional (BN) wrested the Tanjung Piai parliamentary seat by a huge 15,086-vote majority on Saturday, 18 months after it lost the seat in the 14th General Election.
BN’s Datuk Seri Dr Wee Jeck Seng, who had been a two-term Tanjung Piai member of parliament, polled 25,466 votes, while PH’s Karmaine Sardini received 10,380 votes.
Gerakan’s Wendy Subramaniam garnered 1,707 votes and Berjasa candidate Datuk Dr Badhrulhisham Abdul Aziz polled 850 votes. The two Independent candidates, Faridah Aryani Abd Ghani and Dr Ang Chuan Lock, only garnered 380 and 32 votes, respectively.
Asked if the narrative used by the opposition on PH’s leadership transitional issue had been damaging to the party, Mujahid said as an opposition politician himself for two terms, this was definitely something they (the opposition) had taken advantage of.