A Pakatan Harapan victory in Cameron Highlands by-election on January 26 is very difficult but not impossible, and it will make even greater history than the unexpected Pakatan Harapan win in the 14GE on May 9, 2018

Can the Pakatan Harapan candidate, M. Manogaran, win against the Barisan Nasional’s candidate, former top police officer and the first Orang Asli parliamentary candidate in Barisan Nasional history, Ramli Mohd Nor in the Cameron Highlands by-election on January 26?

It will be very difficult and uphill. A Pakatan Harapan victory in Cameron Highlands by-election on January 26 is not impossible and will make even greater history than the unexpected Pakatan Harapan win in the 14GE on May 9, 2018.

The 14th General Election result on May 9, 2018 created history for Malaysia and the world. The overwhelming majority of Malaysians had not expected Pakatan Harapan to win that night, although they had “hoped against hope” for a victory which they had not dared to believe would happen.

I myself had not expected a peaceful and democratic transition of power in Putrajaya from UMNO/Barisan Nasional to Pakatan Harapan, although I had hoped for such a peaceful and democratic transition of power for over five decades.

In the 11-day campaign period of the 14th General Election, I had campaigned in 35 parliamentary constituencies, going all over the country including Sabah and Sarawak, and I was only in the Iskandar Puteri parliamentary constituency at the start and end of the election campaign.

If someone had asked me on May 9, 2018 before the votes were counted, I would not dare to predict that the Pakatan Harapan would oust Datuk Seri Najib Razak and topple the UMNO/BN coalition from power for the first time in over six decades.

I asked the Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad recently whether he had expected Pakatan Harapan to win on the night of May 9, 2018, and he shook his head.

Even the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak was supremely confident of victory, even to the extent of believing that he would be able to recapture the two-thirds parliamentary majority which Barisan Nasional lost ten years ago in 2008.

But even on that night where the impossible became possible and Pakatan Harapan replaced UMNO/Barisan Nasional as the Federal Government of Malaysia, the Pakatan Harapan was not able to win the Cameron Highlands seat.

This is a measure of how difficult and uphill for Pakatan Harapan to win the Cameron Highlands by-election, though it is not an impossible task.

I ask the voters of Cameron Highlands, whether Malays, Chinese, Orang Asli or Indians to create greater history in the by-election than the history of May 9, 2018 – for it would indeed be very historic, signalling not only a new future for Cameron Highlands for the next four years but an opening salvo of the Pakatan Harapan’s battle-cry in the next 15th General Election to capture the Pahang state government in four years’ time by 2023.