SEGAMAT, March 23 — Pakatan Harapan (PH) has set its sights on the Segamat federal seat as part of its incursion into the Umno and Barisan Nasional (BN) bastion state of Johor.
At its heart is an idyllic town spanning an area of 10km and notable for the absence of tall buildings.
Here, there are two state seats, each defined by a racial majority. Jementah is predominantly Chinese and predictably held by DAP while Buloh Kasap, where Segamat town is located, is largely Malay due to the surrounding Felda settlements and controlled by BN.
Yet, the Segamat parliamentary seat is held by MIC via president Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam, despite Indian voters comprising just 10 per cent of the 47,000 registered here. The remainder are almost evenly split between the Chinese and Malays.
DAP did not contest the federal seat and instead yielded it to ally PKR that first won it in 2008 via Datuk Chua Jui Meng, who later lost to Dr Subramaniam in 2013 by just 1,217 votes.
With a margin that small, the Opposition pact believes the MIC president is on shaky ground and can be knocked down with a concerted push.
This time around, DAP has become the most prominent of the PH parties, ahead of PKR and the fledgling Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM), but all are eagerly working towards scalping the MIC chief here, based on the belief that discontent with him is growing, especially among Felda settlers.
The predominantly Malay areas are said to be aggrieved with the MIC president, whom they have accused of neglecting them.
The ire was fuelled by the perception that he was focusing on wooing the Chinese voters in Jementah, rather than serving his Malay supporters in Buloh Kasap who feel they were the ones who sent him to Parliament.
To whom Dr Subramaniam owes his electoral win is patent. MIC has no election machinery here, and like the former party leaders who ran here before, Dr Subramanian has had to depend on Umno’s grassroots to fill the roll.
Umno’s election machinery is seen as the “best”, particularly when it comes to reaching into Malay heartland areas such as the Felda settlements, where they are able to tap even the houses deepest within the vast schemes that stretch all the way into Pahang.
In Buloh Kasap, BN assemblyman Norshida Ibrahim is secure, while the hold of DAP’s Tan Chen Choon on Jementah is thought to be unassailable. The only person whose future is in doubt is Dr Subramaniam.
The problem may be of his own doing — if critical voters are to be believed. The whispers of unhappiness all share a common theme: Why does Dr Subramaniam not visit personally?
The perceived slight is worsened by their view that the MIC president is more focused on wooing support from the town in the adjacent seat.
A local grassroots campaigner who wanted to be known as Tok Bakar, 59, said all it would take is a minor swing among the 5,000 or voters in Felda schemes to send Dr Subramanam packing, even if conditions were unchanged from 2013.
“Now that we have a new Malay party, Pribumi, and young voters have been exposed to many national issues — although those did not affect them much — the scenario has changed; not by much, but enough to be significant.
“Although Pribumi has not affected the Umno divisions here, whose members are die-hard Umno voters, the party is attracting young voters who may chip away at the majority Subramaniam polled last time,” he said.
Segamat town is laidback and its features, few and far between. There are few natural congregation points except for the town square where youngsters meet up and families go for a night out.
Eating spots or food courts are scattered around the town. Each can be as far as 3km from the next.
A Parent-Teacher Association chairman who wanted anonymity, clarified that the constituency was not unhappy with the development under Dr Subramaniam, but was missing his “personal touch” and visits, particularly among Malay and Indian voters.
“Unlike Chinese voters who seem to understand the tight schedules of the health minister or their assemblyman in Jementah who is from DAP, Malay and Indian voters still need to see the faces of their representatives.
“This tradition of a personal touch is still part and parcel of rural politics, which determines the popularity of the candidate regardless of party ideologies and philosophies,” he said.
He said Umno division chief Datuk Zahari Sarip was working hard to retain support for Dr Subramaniam, but is fighting an uphill battle for as long as the MIC president does not put in the effort to make ground visits here a priority.
A constituent also said Dr Subramanian should not completely depend on Umno’s support, as Malay voters would eventually ask why they should vote for a candidate unknown to and unseen by them.
Serving by proxy was also unacceptable, he said when insisting — like the others — that elected representatives must make an effort to meet their voters to better understand their needs and problems.
This disconnect makes it hard to predict with certainty which way Segamat will move in the general election, but the cracks are already there.
With the right candidate and message, the Opposition could strike a hard enough blow to turn the already shaky ground upon which Dr Subramanaim is currently standing into an abyss that could swallow him whole.
