KAJANG, March 22 — Lower voter turnout for tomorrow’s by-election here could hamper Pakatan Rakyat’s push for a bigger winning majority and dent its hopes of making the Kajang vote a referendum against the government.
PKR leaders said its plan for a landslide majority will depend on the voter turnout, although it remained confident of retaining the state seat it won in the national polls last year.
“Voter turnout is crucial for us at this moment so we are pushing for a much higher turnout,” Elizabeth Wong, Bukit Lanjan PKR lawmaker told a press conference here.
“If the turnout is low the majority could be affected,” she added.
But party leaders maintained that they are not “too concerned” with the numbers, insisting that a win with a decreased majority would still give them boasting rights over its political rivals.
“A win is still a win,” Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, PKR president and candidate for Kajang told reporters here.
In last year’s general election, PKR’s Lee Chin Cheh won the seat with a comfortable 6,824 majority in a six-cornered fight against Barisan Nasional’s Lee Ban Seng and four independents.
There are close to 39,000 registered voters in Kajang with Malays making up 48 per cent, followed by the Chinese at 41 per cent and Indians at 10 per cent.
Voter turnout in May last year reached 88 per cent.
Lee resigned from his post, triggering a by-election in which opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had intended to contest.
Anwar’s jail sentence for sodomy this month upended those plans.
His wife Wan Azizah was named as the replacement candidate for the by-election.
