KUALA LUMPUR – Former Penang deputy chief minister II P. Ramasamy says his new ethnic-Indian party Urimai will contest the Kuala Kubu Bharu by-election, to be held following the death of its incumbent recently.
It will be Urimai’s first electoral outing since it was formed in November last year after a disgruntled Ramasamy quit DAP. Urimai stands for United for the Rights of Malaysians.
“Urimai members will be participating in the by-election to ensure Indian voters deny the Pakatan Harapan (PH) candidate the chance to win.
“Urimai will point out the numerous instances in the past one year or so of how the hypothetical Madani government failed to live up to the expectations of the Indian community,” Ramasamy said in a statement today.
The Kuala Kubu Bharu state seat in Selangor is vacant following the death of its assemblyperson Lee Kee Hiong on March 21.
Lee, of DAP, died aged 58 after having held the seat for three terms since 2013.
She defeated the Gerakan-Perikatan Nasional candidate in the state election last year by a 4,119-vote majority.
In 2018, she increased her majority to beat the MCA candidate by 7,134 ballots, compared to the 1,702 margin she obtained when she first won the seat in 2013, also against MCA.
Ramasamy today said his party Urimai would enter the fray after hearing talk that DAP might field a Malay or Sikh candidate in the coming by-election.
But, he added, his personal survey of the seat recently found that “more than half of the Indian community are not desirous of supporting a PH candidate”.
With Indian voters making up about 18% of the electorate in Kuala Kubu Baru, he said they could be “kingmakers given their strategic role in determining the winner or loser in the by-election”.
Ramasamy, who had joined DAP in 2005 and represented the party in the Perai state seat in Penang for three terms, quit the PH component in August last year after he was dropped from the party’s list of candidates for the state election.
He said he had not been informed of DAP’s decision not to field him.
He then formed Urimai with other ex-DAP figures, former Bagan Dalam assemblyman M. Satees and David Marshall, who also quit the PH party. – April 1, 2024