KUALA TERENGGANU, July 30 — Kuala Terengganu Umno division deputy chief, Armi Irzan Mohd described his selection as the Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate for the Bandar seat in the Terengannu state election as creating history.
This is because the seat he is contesting in the election traditionally belonged to MCA in the spirit of the BN coalition, of which Umno is the lynchpin, for the past 60 years.
“History is created... the Bandar seat was given to Umno after 60 years it was shared with MCA. I am confident that Umno will be well received by the voters, especially the Chinese community in Bandar due to the spirit of unity and the relationship that has been established for so long,” he told Bernama here.
In fact, according to him, he himself has a close relationship with the Chinese community in the constituency since he was active with Umno Youth in 2005.
“I have been in close contact with the Chinese community in Bandar for a long time and I always accompanied former MCA assemblyman Toh Chin Yaw who served here from 2004 to 2013 delivering assistance and various programmes together.
“I don’t think there is a problem wIth Umno replacing MCA here. God willing, they can accept it,” said 43-year-old Armi Irzan.
He further said that the decision to place an Umno candidate in Bandar was also made based on the composition of voters according to race in the constituency which has changed.
“If we look were at the 11th General Election (GE11), the difference in the number of Malay and Chinese voters was only around 3,000 people. But now the number of Malay voters exceeds the Chinese voters with a majority of more than 7,000 people,” he said.
In GE 14 in 2018, PAS candidate Ahmad Shah Muhamed won the Bandar seat. He defeated Azan Ismail of PKR and Toh Seng Cheng (BN-MCA).
Six states — Kedah, Penang, Selangor, Negeri, Sembilan, Terengganu and Kelantan- go to the polls on August 12. Nomination day was yesterday (July 29).
MCA has decided to sit out the state polls this time. — Bernama
