KUALA LUMPUR: The parliamentary seats having Felda settlements, once considered as Barisan Nasional’s (BN) stronghold is now rattled following the 14th General Election (GE14).
Pakatan Harapan (PH), led by former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, managed to ‘penetrate the fort’ as more and more settlers started to vote for PH.
This phenomenon was apparent when more than half of 52 Felda parliamentary seats had fallen to PH during the just concluded GE14 yesterday.
BN was seen to have been caught off-guard with the ‘tsunami’ and it can be said that the legacy of BN in Felda settlements was fading out despite the numerous initiatives introduced for the settlers recently.
PKR managed to snatch eight seats which previously held by BN, namely Segamat, Sekijang, Labis, Pagoh, Ledang, Simpang Renggam and Tebrau.
Various factors could lead to this changing trends in voting such as the candidate’s performances, feedbacks and their contributions to local communities for the past five years.
Felda has 317 settlements nationwide with nearly half, or 115, located in Pahang.
There are an estimated 1.2 million Felda voters comprising about 119,000 settlers, their wives, children and grandchildren, as well as employees of Felda and its various companies.