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Johor Umno liaison committee deputy chairman Ahmad Maslan said with a total of 66,000 voters and 29 polling centres, the machinery must work hard to meet as many voters as possible during the campaign period.
“Unlike the Nenggiri state constituency where 99% of the voters are Malay, the ethnic composition in Mahkota is different. In Mahkota, the voter breakdown is approximately 54% Malay, 35% Chinese, and about 8% Indian.
“This leads to the second challenge, which is the ethnic breakdown. It means the machinery needs to deal with different thought patterns according to each ethnic group,” he told Bernama.
Ahmad said the third biggest challenge that could undermine BN’s chances in this by-election was the social media reach.
“In Mahkota, there are no infrastructure issues, hence, another challenge is social media because the constituency has all the facilities. This means we are open to social media criticism and attacks,” he added.
As such, he called for the party machinery to be more active in addressing local and national issues on social media to garner voter support.
The Election Commission has set Sept 28 as polling day for the by-election in Johor, while the nomination and early voting dates are Sept 14 and 24, respectively.
The by-election was called following the death of the incumbent assemblyman, Sharifah Azizah Syed Zain, 63, on Aug 2.
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