PETALING JAYA, April 6 — Penang has been largely spared the redelineation controversies that have seen name changes and new seats created elsewhere in the country, but for the DAP MP for Bukit Bendera, there is no such thing as a safe seat in GE14.

Zairil Khir Johari, who replaced DAP strategist Liew Chin Tong and retained the parliamentary seat for DAP in the 2013 general election, said Bukit Bendera has traditionally been a stronghold of Gerakan, a Barisan Nasional (BN) component party.

"Its former secretary-general Datuk Seri Chia Kwang Chye held the seat there for three terms,” he told Malay Mail’s sister publication, ProjekMMO.

The 35-year-old politician said even DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang had lost in Bukit Bendera when he contested the seat in 1999.

"So the seat cannot be taken lightly,” Zairil said.

The Penang DAP vice-chairman was non-committal on whether he would defend his seat, but said whoever who contested in Bukit Bendera would have to face a group of "intelligent voters”.

"In the past, Bukit Bendera was a BN stronghold. Penang voters, if we go by history, can change their minds any time.

"In 1969, they voted Gerakan and rejected BN. In 2008, they gave DAP a great win and rejected Gerakan. This, therefore, cannot be looked at in the blink of an eye,” Zairil said.

He reiterated that there can be no guarantee DAP will be able to retain Bukit Bendera in the coming election.

Likewise, he said it was hard to predict the outcome for DAP, which won 19 out of 40 seats in the state legislative assembly in Election 2013 — the biggest number of any political party.

Zairil pointed out too that although Penang was largely unaffected by the nationwide electoral redelineation exercise, which was tabled in Parliament last week and has since been gazetted, DAP cannot assume it will be returned to power in the island state for a third term.

"In politics, we must continue all of our efforts and not take things for granted,” he said.

In the last general election, Zairil won the Bukit Bendera seat with 32,778 votes over BN’s candidate, Teh Leong Meng.