PONTIAN: Pakatan Harapan (PH) will never resort to personal attacks in order to win people’s votes and retain the Tanjung Piai parliamentary seat.
Despite being the victim of personal attacks from the opposition, PH candidate Karmaine Sardini, 66, vowed not to do the same but would ensure his campaign reflected “a healthy contest”.
Less than two hours after he was announced as PH candidate, Tanjung Piai Bersatu chief was mockingly called ‘old candidate’, while his Advanced Diploma in Architecture from the Mara Institute of Technology (now Universiti Teknologi Mara) in 1980’s had been labelled as a fake.
“When my qualification had been questioned, many of my friends came to my defence, including my former boss, ex-Kuala Lumpur mayor Datuk Seri Roslin Husin, who had verified that I used to work under him as an architect at Kuala Lumpur City Hall when he was the director-general,” he told Bernama here.
There was no more of such allegations after that, he said, adding that as a politician, one should be open and mature as well as remain calm when facing personal attack.
When met by reporters in a separate event today, Karmaine said the presence of Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad here to help PH campaign would give a boost the party’s machinery.
“I am honoured. He (Dr Mahathir) chose me as the candidate and now he said would come here to campaign for me,” said Karmaine.
Yesterday, Dr Mahathir was reported as saying that he would join PH campaign in Tanjung Piai by-election.
“I will go there (to campaign), at least once,” the prime minister told Malaysian reporters covering the 35th Asean Summit in Bangkok, Thailand.
The Election Commission has set Nov 16 as polling day for the Tanjung Piai by-election and Nov 12 for early voting.
The polls will be a six-cornered fight between Karmaine, Barisan Nasional’s Datuk Seri Dr Wee Jeck Seng, Gerakan’s Wendy Subramaniam, Datuk Dr Badhrulhisham Abdul Aziz of Pan Malaysian Islamic Front (Berjasa) and two independent candidates - Faridah Aryani Abdul Ghaffar and Dr Ng Chuan Lock.
The seat fell vacant after its incumbent Datuk Dr Md Farid Md Rafik, 42, who was also Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, died on Sept 21 due to heart complications.
In the 14th general election, Dr Md Farid of PH won the seat after polling 21,255 votes to defeat BN’s Wee (20,731 votes) and PAS candidate Nordin Othman (2,962 votes). — Bernama
