RANTAU, April 1 — Umno acting president Datuk Seri Mohamad Hassan damned his Pakatan Harapan rival with faint praise today, simultaneously backing the latter’s pledges to voters here and taking a swipe at the pact’s broken election promises.
Asked for his thoughts on Dr S. Streram’s promise to bring investors for a tertiary education centre here and to improve eco-tourism, among others, the Umno leader also known as Tok Mat mockingly said he supported such notions.
“Good, that is such a good idea. Make sure you do it,” he said in a press conference at Kampung Tanjong.
“Pakatan Harapan prefers to just talk. Even their past pledges they have not kept to it but they have made new promises here.”
He then made his true feelings known by insisting the locale was too small and remote to reasonably support a college by itself.
Mohamad said it was better to grow the district via development so that it could achieve the “critical mass” that would merit Rantau’s own college and other such infrastructure.
Promising a college without this was “putting the cart before the horse”, he added.
The former three-time assemblyman for the area, who lost the seat as a result of the Special Election Court’s annulment of the 14th general election result, said he was also not taking things for granted in this by-election.
“Rantau is important to both parties. PH even touted it as being the mother of all by-elections. Why? Because of who is contesting?
“They intend to break BN’s (Barisan Nasional’s) momentum as much as possible and they intend to stop me here and now,” he said.
Mohamad said although most of the voters knew him, he intended to do his best to meet as many people as possible.
“You never know what could happen and voters can change their minds at any time. Politics is dynamic in nature and not static, so I’m trying to meet everyone to reconfirm their support,” he said.
Rantau will vote on April 13.
