TELUK INTAN, May 21 — The Teluk Intan by-election campaign sees DAP focusing on the Malay areas of Kampung Bahagia with nightly ceramah from PAS, PKR, as well as DAP’s Malay leaders.

Using a stage erected on a vacant lot, enough to hold a 3,000-strong audience, the three Pakatan Rakyat (PR) opposition parties have also put up stalls for their members to sell clothes and food.

In Teluk Intan Pekan Baru, just 1km from the town where the famous leaning clock tower stands, DAP and Barisan Nasional (BN) have set up their respective operation centres side-by-side.

The town is the focus of DAP and BN in wooing Chinese voters as candidates from the warring parties, often accompanied by their campaigners, make their rounds every morning and evening to meet with mostly Chinese voters.

The campaign trail in town differs from that in rural areas given the difference in landscape and population distribution.

In urban areas, where voters are busy until late evening, both candidates do not talk much. They merely shake hands and introduce themselves, smiling from ear to ear.

Each night, campaigners gather in restaurants with small groups of voters to pitch in and dish out aid.

In rural areas, where Malays dominate, it is a similar approach but more personal. Campaigners, particularly from the women wings, are given more time by the voters. The campaigners are invited into houses or small roadside stalls to talk a bit more about the candidates and the parties.

The campaign is not vigorous on the ground but in cyberspace, the war is raging. Bloggers on both sides have hit out at each other in an attempt to woo voters to their side.

Character assassination and political philosophies seem to take centrestage, something which voters fail to understand.

In a sparsely populated constituency such as Teluk Intan, campaigners and candidates rely on the media to air their views on issues because logistically, ceramah do not attract many voters.

So far, no explosive issues have been raised by either side because both play on bread-and-butter issues, such as price increases.

This puts BN, as challenger, and DAP, as defender, in a fix because both sides do not know what’s on the minds of the voters.

DAP is more fearful because the party faces an internal problem due to its candidate Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud being parachuted in, making Chinese voters uneasy and causing a split in party support for her.

This was evident on nomination day, when only some 500 or so PR supporters accompanied her to the nomination centre, unlike the usual thousands, as in the case of Ramkarpal Singh in Penang.