KEMAMAN: A Barisan Nasional (BN) victory in the Kemaman parliamentary seat by-election on Dec 2 will pave the way for the constituents to have two elected representatives to help champion their needs.
MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong described it as "buy-one, free-one" when voters in Kemaman will not only get a representative in the Federal government, but also a menteri besar, Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar, who is contesting under the Perikatan Nasional (PN) banner.
"BN's Raja Mohamed Affandi (Gen Rtd) victory in the by-election will not pose any threat to Ahmad Samsuri as the Terengganu menteri besar or topple the state government.
"Raja Mohamed Affandi will perform his duties in Parliament while Ahmad Samsuri can continue focusing on state affairs. Try to consider this... buy one (vote BN) and get one free (Pas). Dr Sam (Ahmad Samsuri) will be the menteri besar as the state assembly seats will remain 32-0.
"If the people here want someone to remain (focus) as the menteri besar, then it is best to pick Raja Mohamed Affandi as their member of parliament. This is the best opportunity to break the 8-0 scoreline (all parliaments won by Pas) to allow check and balance. a win will see Raja Mohamed Affandi being the sole opposition elected representative in Terengganu," he told reporters after meeting the Chinese community at a restaurant in Chukai town.
Meanwhile, Wee said the majority of the Chinese voters in Kemaman were backing the unity government, but they need to work hard with the other parties in the unity government to secure the Malay votes.
"We have to work hard to get the Malay votes. I noticed that our rival's have been going around with a lot of promises and spreading their propaganda.
"They distributed various types of manifesto written in Chinese and this shows that they are trying to secure the support from everyone including the Chinese voters," he said.
Meanwhile, in a Facebook posting, Wee wrote that although there are only 7,000 Chinese voters in the constituency, they must ensure political balance exists in Kemaman, since BN did not win a single state seat in Terengganu.
The Kemaman parliamentary seat by-election is a straight fight between Ahmad Samsuri and Raja Mohamed Affandi. The constituency has a total of 141,790 registered voters.
The by-election was called following the decision of the Terengganu Election Court on Sept 26 to annul the victory of Pas candidate Che Alias Hamid in the 15th general election.