KUALA LUMPUR: The 15th General Election (GE15) race for the Batu parliamentary seat will set a benchmark to determine if popularity in social media can translate into votes in the Nov 19 polls.
Batu has turned into one of the most crowded fights as incumbent member of parliament P. Prabakran of PKR is defending his seat against nine contenders, including two political heavyweights and social media influencer Nur Fathiah Syazwana Shaharuddin.
Better known as "Cleopatra" among her social media followers, Nur Fathiah Syazwana is one of four independent candidates throwing their hat into the ring in the constituency.
Political analyst Dr Azmi Hassan said it would be interesting to see the number of votes garnered by Nur Fathiah Syazwana since she commands the highest number of social media followers compared with other candidates contesting in Batu.
"She has a huge amount of followers in social media. It would be interesting to see if she is able to translate her popularity in social media into votes or otherwise in GE15," he said.
Azmi, who is a senior fellow at the Nusantara Academy for Strategic Research, was featured as a panellist during the New Straits Times (NST) Insight GE15 Edition titled: "The Battle Begins".
Moderated by Arfa Yunus, the interview was broadcast live on NST Online Facebook this morning.
Nur Fathiah Syazwana has more than 207,000 followers on her Instagram account, almost seven times higher compared with Prabakaran's 29,600 Instagram followers.
Apart from Nur Fathiah Syazwana, the other independent candidates contesting the seat include sacked PKR leader Tian Chua, controversial lawyer and activist Siti Zabedah Kassim or better known as Siti Kassim; and Too Cheng Huat.
Other candidates vying for the seat include Datuk A. Kohilan Pillay from Barisan Nasional (BN), Perikatan Nasional's (PN) Azhar Yahya, Naganathan Pillai of Parti Warisan, Wan Azliana Wan Adnan (Parti Pejuang Tanah Air) and Mohd Zulkifli Abdul Fattah (Parti Rakyat Malaysia).
While Batu has become the battleground to determine if social media popularity could translate into votes, Azmi said the outcome of the contest for the Arau parliamentary constituency in Perlis will determine if the popularity of a person triumphs over that of a political party.
Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim is defending Arau under the PN banner in this election after he was dropped by BN in the coalition's line-up of candidate for the polls.
"Shahidan has been saying that he is confident of retaining Arau no matter what party he is contesting for.
"He is no doubt popular in Arau but I doubt that he could dent the entire support for BN in Perlis. This is because the dacing (BN's logo) is very much ingrained among BN supporters in the state," he said.
Shahidan is facing a three-cornered contest in Arau and his opponents include Datuk Rozabil Abdul Rahman of Umno and PH's Fatin Amelina Fazlie.
