By J Terence Netto

After a week of following the Lunas by-election campaign on the basis of what was reported in the mainstream media and on the Web, a day's reconnoitre of the place strengthened the impression that this election could help break the mould in Malaysian politics, of the general tendency to vote along sectarian lines.

Lunas, a mixed-race, semi-urban constituency in the southwest corner of Kedah state, on November 29 goes to the polls to elect an assemblyman in place of its assassinated former representative, Dr Joe Fernandez of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), a component of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN).

Dr Fernandez, in popular reckoning, had parlayed the humanitarian imperatives of his medical career into populist appeal with voters. He was elected twice, in 1995 and 1999; the first time on the back of a resounding BN performance, the second partly on the strength of his populist appeal, even as BN's popularity waned among Malay voters as a result of the Anwar Ibrahim issue.

By-elections in Malaysia are not normally momentous affairs in national politics. Except for Tambunan in 1985, when Pairin Kitingan's election heralded the downfall of Harris Salleh's Berjaya government in Sabah state, by-elections have mostly been humdrum affairs, invariably ending in a BN stroll to victory. True, Kepayang and Johor Baru in the 1980s, and Teluk Intan and Arau in the succeeding decade saw opposition triumphs, but these were more wake-up calls to the BN, unlike Tambunan's which was a death knell.

The Lunas by-election promises to be different. Even if the BN retains the seat, the most optimistic among their supporters agree that it will be by a reduced majority. Such a result would not allay the anxieties raised by their less-than-robust performance in the general elections a year ago. A victory for the Barisan Alternatif's (BA) Parti Keadilan Nasional would deny the BN a two-thirds majority in the Kedah State Assembly, with all that that implies for the BN's standing in a state where it lost eight of 15 parliamentary seats to Pas, which also won 12 state seats to the BN's 34, in the last general elections.

A denial of the BN's two-thirds majority would have implications for the constituency redelineation exercise that the Elections Commission undertakes every 10 years. Such exercises are subject to two-thirds' endorsement by the state assemblies. The next redelineation is due before the next general elections, due by 2004. Observers predict the exercise would see the creation of more mixed-race constituencies, watering down the preponderance of single-race constituencies. Because the Malays, who are the majority voters in about 100 of 193 parliamentary constituencies nationwide, and who used to vote mainly for Umno (nee BN) but now appear more in favour of either Pas or Keadilan as a consequence of the still-festering Anwar Ibrahim issue, the next redelineation exercise will have implications for the various parties' ability to win seats.

The Lunas by-elecion is also important for how the Chinese will vote. In the last general elections, the Chinese, who in the past reserved a significant share of their vote for the opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP), voted solidly for the BN. This change was attributed to fears of the Islamist orientation of Pas, the DAP's partner in the loose BA coalition.

Such fears are not expected to weigh heavily in the Lunas Chinese voters' calculations this time. There are more than 9,000 Chinese voters in the constituency, to some 11,000 Malay voters, with 5,000-plus Indians rounding off the electorate. Keadilan supporters claim that they can garner more than 60% of the Malay vote. With the backing of about 50% of the Chinese and 10% of the Indians, the BA candidate ought to come away on November 29 with a narrow victory, according to Keadilan calculations.

Keadilan activists are fairly confident that the Lunas Chinese will change the community's voting pattern of the last general elections. They contend that the opposition of the Chinese education movement to the Vision Schools plan has influenced the Lunas Chinese to favour BA candidate Saifuddin Nasution. Two recent incidents of Umno-Chinese friction have discomfited the Chinese, say Keadilan officials. The first was of the Umno Youth protest over Suqiu's famous 17 Points, whose threatening overtones were graphically captured in a poster of Umno Youth's deputy chief, Aziz Sheikh Fadzir, pointing a finger at a calmly composed Suqiu official. The second incident happened earlier this month, when DAP's Teng Chang Kim, a Selangor State Assemblyman, was slapped and abused by Umno representative Zakaria Deros, whose effrontery and the racial epithet he hurled at Teng were not calculated to assuage Chinese sensitivities.

"The Vision Schools issue and those two incidents, one captured on a poster, have swung Chinese sentiment in our favour," contends Haji Abdul Rahman Kadir, Keadilan opposition leader in the Penang state assembly. Other Keadilan officials said that if DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang were to come to Lunas to campaign, even for a day, it would strengthen the reported Chinese swing in favour of the BA's Saifuddin. They claim that Kit Siang's presence would dispel the fallout from the BA's rejection of DAP's preferred candidate, S Neelamaken, and the resulting furore from the DAP, particularly its Indian section.

A BN official from Wanita Umno, who knows the southern Kedah region well, offered the view that getting in their candidate, S Anthonysamy of the MIC, was going to be "tough." She remarked, "It's always tough for us in Kedah," downplaying the issue of Anwar Ibrahim by adding, "It was tough even before [the Anwar issue]."

It seemed a retreat into the long history of Umno-Pas electoral battles in Kedah state. However, the Pas presence appears to be discernible mainly in the plenitude of their posters. The party appears content to let Keadilan make the running, and allow such exigent support as from the Chinese education movement to fall into the BA's lap as a bonus. In Lunas, Pas appears to have learned the lesson from the last elections: don't crowd the Chinese voter; just allow Umno's mistakes to come home to roost.