Unity among BN members at its peak

BARISAN Nasional is all geared up to defend the Gerik parliamentary seat and Pengkalan Hulu and Temengor state seats in the 13th general election.

With Gerakan returning the Grik seat to Umno, the BN election machinery, particularly from Umno, is up and running and working hard to ensure victory for the BN candidate from Umno.

Gerik Umno division acting chief Datuk Hasbullah Osman is confident BN will retain all the seats as in previous general elections.

Hasbullah said his confidence stemmed from the fact that voters in the Gerik parliamentary constituency had thrown their full support behind BN despite the Gerik seat — traditionally an Umno seat — was given to Gerakan to contest in the 2008 general election.

He said such strong support had allowed Datuk Tan Lian Hoe to win the Gerik seat with a majority of 5,573 votes, the highest among BN members of parliament in Perak.

“For Pengkalan Hulu, incumbent Tan Sri Tajol Rosli Ghazali has left an outstanding track record in the state constituency, besides excellent services provided by BN teams.

“Therefore, even though a new face will be fielded in Pengkalan Hulu this time, I feel strongly that BN will retain the state seat,” said Hasbullah, who had been contesting the Temengor state seat since the 2004 general election.

He said BN was well prepared to counter any national or local issues or accusations brought up by the opposition during campaigning.He stressed that BN had never underestimated the opposition’s strength as it had always provided a stiff fight to BN.“We had the experience of becoming the opposition in Perak for 11 months. We don’t want that.”

He said unity among BN and Umno members was at its peak as grassroots members had learned from the bitter experience after the last polls.