ANALYSIS, July 25 — There was never really a doubt that Barisan Nasional (BN) would win at the Kuala Besut polls as just over two months ago, it scored the same victory with an over 2,000-vote majority.

This fact was acknowledged by Besut MP and deputy by-election director Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh on Nomination Day, when he claimed that Kuala Besut folks were still in the same mood as they were on May 5.

To the many fishermen, padi and tobacco farmers, and sawmill workers here, there was no reason to vote against BN. Assemblymen from the ruling coalition had represented them for the last three terms, and they saw no reason to rock their figurative boats.

And vote for BN they did, giving BN’s Tengku Zaihan Che Ku Abdul Rahman an even bigger win than his predecessor yesterday, with a 2,592-vote majority when he polled 8,288 votes to his contender’s 5,696 votes.

A vote to keep the stability and development

Of huge significance was the late Dr A. Rahman Mokhtar’s two-term service, where he grew to be well-loved by his constituents. So huge was his legacy that many locals who spoke to The Malay Mail Online said they would vote for Tengku Zaihan because he was seen by BN as a natural successor to the late doctor.

To counter his popularity, PAS had played on what they called “politics of poverty”, claiming that BN had deliberately kept the rural folks in poor so they would stay dependent on financial aid from the government.

During the campaign, the Islamist party revealed, one by one, cases of alleged neglect by the state government, such as the long-suffering shallow river mouth in Sungai Besut, the busted Lowvier dam in Pengkalan Nangka, and the poor living conditions of some families where their houses were in shambles.

But for every allegation, the BN federal government deftly responded by instantly announcing multi-million projects — nearly RM500 million worth — to remedy the problems, even before the issues gained traction with the locals.

Tengku Zaihan is lifted by jubilant BN members after he was proclaimed victor in Kuala Besut last night.

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin appeared to affirm this strategy yesterday when he said that voters recognised the coalition’s development promises as sincere efforts that would deeply impact the idyllic Terengganu fishing town.

Going by last night’s results, there appears no sign that such massive spending during a BN campaign would ever stop. With Kuala Besut being just the first of possibly more by-elections to come, expect the government to dig into its coffers yet again to pledge more multi-million ringgit promises.

PAS’s failed gambit

It remains to be seen whether this defeat will be the nail on PAS by-election director Datuk Husam Musa’s political coffin, especially after his defeat in Putrajaya in Election 2013, and his exclusion from Kelantan state exco line-up.

Ever the realist, the party vice-president even conceded early in the fight that PAS had an uphill battle before them against the might of BN’s political machinery and Cabinet ministers.

Husam tried from Day One to pit Idris against his rival and successor Terengganu Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Ahmad Said, a strategy that fell flat in the holy month of Ramadan where both sides struck a gentlemen’s agreement not to resort to personal attacks.

On the sidelines, unexpected attention went to PAS’s central working committee member Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, national chief election director Dr Mohd Hatta Ramli, and Kuala Terengganu MP Raja Datuk Kamarul Bahrin Shah Ahmad — described as the progressives in the party — who had become the party’s faces for the media.

Holding their press conferences every day, they were tasked with explaining the significance of the party’s “16:16” agenda, banking on the possibility of a “hung assembly” if both BN and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) hold 16 seats each in the state assembly.

Initially seen as an opportunity for Terengganu’s Sultan Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin to choose a new mentri besar from PAS, the agenda quickly morphed into a way to create better check and balance in the government even with a BN mentri besar, as the possibility became more distant.

On the final day of campaign, Dzulkefly appeared to concede that while PAS had managed to disseminate its agenda, the party was uncertain whether the local folks had fully grasped its significance as much as the progressives in the party did.

The future of Najib and Umno

Much has been said about how the future of BN and Umno chief Datuk Seri Najib Razak would hang on the results of this by-election. A loss after the dismal result in the general election would have spelt doom for him at the Umno elections later this year.

Now that BN has won, Najib’s future ironically does not look that much brighter. A strong campaign led by Najib’s deputy Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin only serves as more ammo for the latter should he decide to challenge for the top post.

Although his contemporaries in Umno have pledged to leave the posts of president and deputy president uncontested, a challenge might yet be seen, especially with an apparent endorsement from pro-Umno bloggers and pundits.

Earlier this month, former New Straits Times (NST) group editor-in-chief Datuk A. Kadir Jasin appeared to suggest that Muhyiddin must make the hard decision to challenge the top spot for the sake of the party’s future, and to bolster its struggle for the Malays, Islam and the nation.

In the May polls, Najib-led BN not only failed to recapture its coveted parliamentary supermajority but also lost further ground to PR, when it took 133 seats to the opposition pact’s 89.

Out of the 17,679 registered Kuala Besut voters, 14,108 of them turned up to vote yesterday. The turnout was only 80 per cent compared to 86.7 per cent in May, which had been attributed to the weekday polling day.

In Election 2013 less than two months ago, Rahman had defeated PAS with a 2,434-vote majority, 158 votes fewer than the numbers on Tengku Zaihan’s scoresheet last night.