Najib targets Chinese as key to defeat Zaid Ibrahim

Last night I posted Hulu Selangor - Indian votes vital where I said that while the Malay votes are crucial to Zaid Ibrahim, the Indian votes would be even more vital.

Of course all these have been based on the premise and perception that the majority of Chinese votes will be for Zaid. The consensus is that 70% of Chinese votes will be cast in favour of the PKR candidate, while daring kaytee ;-) thinks it may even be 75%.

I suppose my daring has been influenced by my take expressed in another of my post Hulu Selangor's Chinese, where the local MCA has virtually conceded defeat in their campaign for Kamalanathan.

Thus it can be said that the Chinese votes will form the bulwark of Zaid’s claim to a seat in Parliament.

It would not be far amiss to say that everyone is aware of this, that the Chinese in Hulu Selangor is becoming the central pillar of Zaid’s campaign to represent the rakyat in that constituency.

So it's hardly surprising we now read in The Malaysian Insider’s Hulu Selangor acid test for MCA, says Najib that Najib has started his campaign for Kamalanathan by attempting to chip away at Zaid’s central pillar.

Najib has put the onus on MCA to perform rather than pressure the Chinese voters directly. Yes, 'onus' is the appropriate (& perhaps terrifying) word for the new MCA leadership of Chua and Liow.

The Malaysian Insider reported Najib as stating: ... the Hulu Selangor parliamentary by-election is a test for not only his New Economic Model (NEM), it’s also a test for the new leadership of MCA. It was a test whether they had the support of the Chinese community or not.

In his usual ‘iron fist in a velvet glove’ style, he also added in a direct appeal: “I want the Chinese to join hand-in-hand with the Indians, Malays and other races to move Malaysia forward. We need them to come on board ... we need the Malaysian Chinese to support us.”

Leaving aside the dirty tricks campaign (after all, this is a norm in Malaysian politics), isn’t Hulu Selangor a wonderful constituency, where the man who commands most of the support of all ethnic groups will be the one who wins.