TELUK INTAN, May 31 — DAP is conceding defeat in the closely-fought Teluk Intan by-election after the unofficial tally put Barisan Nasional (BN) in the winner’s spot by 238 votes.
Preliminary results from the tallying centre gave BN’s Datuk Mah Siew Keong victory with 20157 ballots against the 19919 of DAP’s Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud.
“We lost,” DAP’s campaign director Tony Pua told The Malay Mail Online in a text message.
The by-election today saw an unusually small turnout of 66.7 per cent and a lower than anticipated Chinese vote for DAP, swinging the poll in BN’s favour.
“We managed to get about 65 per cent of the Chinese votes,” a Perak DAP source told The Malay Mail Online earlier. “Our majority in Chinese areas is not big enough.”
DAP gambled on fielding Dyana Sofya, a 26-year-old Malay woman, in the Chinese majority constituency and witnessed early dissent among the community over her choice.
Perak DAP chief Datuk Nga Kor Ming concurred that the loss indicated that Malaysians were not ready to move beyond communal politics or immune to BN’s racially-tailored campaigning.
Speaking to the crowd outside the DAP election centre, secretary-general Lim Guan Eng delivered words of encouragement to the party and its defeated candidate.
“Tonight, we didn’t succeed because we only had one Dyana Sofya. But she has sparked the wave of change for the youth and women because we must embrace new politics,” Lim said.
A teary-eyed Dyana Sofya also vowed to soldier on, saying defeat today was not the end of her fledgling political career.
Supporters are still gathering at a football field outside the counting centre where two projectors have been set up to display the vote tally, with members of the police’s Light Strike Force in between.
Both candidates are also expected to arrive at the tallying centre for the announcement of the official result.
MORE TO COME
