PAS now using lucky draws to pull crowds

PAS, which is known to draw the crowds to its ceramah with its fiery speeches, is now resorting to lucky draws to pull in the numbers.

Lucky draws had been held at its events in Sedaka and Sungai Dedap, among others.

It is also relying on television stars to woo voters. Among the artistes on the party’s campaign trail in Sungai Limau were Abby Abadi and Leman Raja Lawak.

However, while PAS is trying to take a “modernised” approach, Umno leaders had gone into pondok schools and madrasah controlled by staunch PAS supporters.

Even Kedah Mentri Besar Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir had been spotted wearing the kopiah and a white top a la PAS style during meet-the-people sessions on the campaign trail.

The state constituency of Sungai Limau, which has 27,222 voters, is a close-knit community despite differences in political ideology, with both Umno and PAS members counting their relatives among those in the rival camps.

The Sungai Limau by-election will be an acid test for PAS as the results would show if the state constituency is truly a PAS stronghold or was just the late incumbent Tan Sri Azizan Abdul Razak’s fort.

During the 1995 general election, PAS, which was almost wiped out then in Kedah, had managed to hold on to Bukit Raya (now known as Tokai) and Sala (now known as Sungai Limau) state constituen-cies.
Since then, the two seats had been regarded as PAS’ top two strongholds in the rice bowl state.

PAS candidate Mohd Azam Abdul Samat’s campaign tagline is Kekal (maintain) while Barisan Nasional candidate Dr Ahmad Sohaimi Lazim’s battle cry is “SL (Sohaimi Lazim) for SL (Sungai Limau)”.
Their fate will be known on polling day on Nov 4.