Kuantan UMNO Working Hard To Recapture Kuantan Seat
By Noor Shamsiah Mohamed
KUANTAN, Nov 30 (Bernama) -- The Kuantan parliamentary seat has been with the opposition Parti Keadilan Rakyat for the past two electoral terms, but UMNO has never ceased to help the constituents.
In fact, the Kuantan UMNO Division has served as the 'welfare centre' for the constituents, assisting them with financing of children's schooling, repairing of houses and providing medical aid for chronic ailments, among others, said the deputy chief of the division, Datuk Seri Ab Hamid Mohd Nazahar.
He said the division had been providing assistance to the constituents over the past four years through the 'cluster-focused movement' strategy that entails integrated aid from all the party wings, including the women, youth and puteri wings.
The Kuantan MP now is Fuziah Salleh of PKR who retained the seat in the 2013 general election by securing 25,834 votes against the 21,319 obtained by Mohamed Suffian Awang of UMNO-Barisan Nasional.
"Although Kuantan is held by the opposition, we are enthusiastic in helping the people and becoming their voice in raising problems. The BN and UMNO have implemented many projects for the well-being of the constituents through federal and state government agencies," Ab Hamid told Bernama.
He said the Kuantan UMNO Division had its particular 'front-liners' to go down to the ground to find out the problems of the targeted groups of people, such as farmers, fishermen, professionals, youths and women.
From the information, he said, the strategy was worked out to address the problems, overcoming weaknesses, providing assistance and drawing up programmes to endear the constituents to UMNO and the BN.
"People of all the communities are seeking an avenue to raise their problems. The elected representative, sorry to say, is not around most of the time. As such, it has become the responsibility of UMNO to help them," he said.
Referring to the BN candidates's defeat in the last general election, Ab Hamid said the opposition tactic of using the Lynas rare earth refinery issue to undermine the BN had led to the loss.
"We know that the opposition adopts the politics of hatred to poison the minds of the people and this makes it all the more difficult for us to counter.
"For example, although the Lynas plant is located in the Indera Mahkota parliamentary constituency, the issue affected the constituents of Kuantan as the negative news was circulated via social media. In the end, it has been proven wrong that people living near the plant can suffer from cancer," he said.
Ab Hamid said Kuantan UMNO was better prepared now in terms of IT to counter the negative propaganda of the opposition, including on the Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park.
He also said that UMNO-BN was in a better position now to recapture the Kuantan seat from PKR in the next general election, due by June 2018.
-- BERNAMA
