Even by 1

During the Visiting Hours of UMMC yesterday, YB Doctor Lo'lo' led a small group of people from the Lajnah Kebajikan dan Kemasyarakatan PAS Pusat (LKKPP), to visit the casualties of a bus accident as in the image above. The visit was ad hoc as the good Doctor wanted to see for herself the condition of the passengers. Of the 28 passengers on the bus, we were informed that 8 were admitted into the various wards, with 2 in critical condition. The remaining 20 suffered light injuries and were released on the same day itself.


On behalf of the LKKPP, Doctor Lo'lo' also distributed a small hamper of fruits to each of the victims warded, along with a token of money in an effort to relieve the expenses the families have to bear. At the same time, the Doctor took the opportunity to get acquainted with several of the staff at each ward, especially in view that she had served in the hospital early in her career as a Medical Doctor.

Soon after the visit, the Doctor was interviewed by reporters from Harakah, touching especially on the recent ManekUrai by-election.

Doctor Lo'Lo', quite like many voices in Pakatan Rakyat, voiced her displeasure on the manner BN conducted their campaign, stooping low with not only the blatant abuse of the government's machineries, money politics, as well as promises which can tantamount to either a threat or bribery, or even both. She also mentioned the selected investigations of MACPA especially on the 2 Pakatan Rakyat ADUN in Selangor, while turning a blind eye to the underhand campaign tactics in Manek Urai, and the RM500,000 DUN allocation which the BN representatives utilised within 2 months prior to the 2008 General Election (at this point of time, the news of Teoh Beng Hock's death was not reported yet).

It was towards the end of the interview that a thought came to my mind.

True, PAS won the Manek Urai seat with a mere 65 count. Many a new portal, conventional media, and even bloggers pointed out to the issues which contributed to the narrow win. And to be honest, almost all of them were right in pointing their views as there was not a single factor, but lots of them, all mixed into one small bowl resulting in a 'masam masam manis' victory for PAS. Nonetheless, a win it still is.

But there is one factor which many seem to forget. Perhaps, we were to look into the past election record of Manek Urai, one might agree that one strong factor that led to the narrow win was, ironically, Allahyarham Ismail Yaakob, the ADUN who passed away.

Were I to read it correctly, except for the 2004 GE and Parliamentary term, Allahyarham Ismail, had been the ADUN for Manek Urak for 5 terms. In 2004, he did not contest the seat and PAS lost it to UMNO. But in 2008 when he was fielded again, Allahyarham won the seat back for PAS. Looking at the trend, the narrow win this time was around was something perhaps PAS should have expected. And along with all the factors many others have pointed out, PAS indeed was lucky to have retained the seat.

In view of this, Emak and I enjoyed some small fits of laughter when Tok Pa claimed that BN's had won a moral victory, despite all the immoral practices used throughout not only the by-election in Manek Urai, but throughout the history of Malaysia and in all elections, General or By; the result speaks for itself: a win is still a win. Even if it is by a single vote.