E Contrario

Part 1

Long time I have not visited Lukut and the nearby areas. This Saturday, Ginie and I made a trip to Lukut as part of our campaign to sell mooncake. It was also an opportunity to meet up with old friends and greet them happy Mid-Autumn Festival.

I got acquainted with this area and its people through Teluk Kemang by-election. The parliament constituency consists of 5 DUN (state assembly seats). I was mainly stationed in the zone which covered Lukut, Chuah, Bukit Pelanduk and Sg Nipah. Our strong hold had been Lukut town, Tanah Merah Site C and Site A. The residents of Site A and Site C were predominantly engaged in the pig rearing industry.

The by-election was held just after the eruption of JE epidemic. The neglect and inaction by the authorities in the early stage angered many residents and pig farmers. As a result, many lives were lost. Instead of just containing the disease, the government ordered all pig farms to be closed.

Thus the residents were hit by double catastrophe—first the virus, then the closure of farms. Prior to the epidemic, almost all families in Site C and A were dependent on pig industry for livelihood.

Despite the government repeated assured that pig farms would be reopened, nobody believed the promises. As it turned out, until now, 6 years after the by-election, pig rearing is still totally banned throughout Negeri Sembilan.

Actually I had not been back to Lukut after my release from Kamunting. Genie and I arrived Lukut at about 9am and we were joined by Teck Hai, Chai Tong Chai, Amiruddin and Azizi. Our local contact was Yap On Peng.

Yap joined KeADILan during the by-election, so did most of our members here. He was a state assembly of MCA in 1980s. We first went around a food court and pasar of Lukut town. We distributed the party papers and sold several boxes of mooncake.
Then we proceeded to Site C. our strongman was an old comrade Low Fu Shan. He was a cadre of the Socialist Front and was detained for 10 years under ISA.

We sat in a traditional ‘kopi tiam’ near Low’s house, and chitchatted with small town folks—old friends who I had not met for years (since my detention).

The interesting thing was that just within about 20 or 30 minutes after we reached the shop, two Special Branch officers, Chinese and Malay, joined us. The two SB were rather polite when greeting us and sat with us. They claimed that they by chance passed by Lukut town and bump into. Well, I accepted their clarification with a pitch of salt. Anyhow, we were doing nothing sinister, so we consented to their presence.

We went on hanging around for more than an hour. We also sold a few boxes of mooncake. We left the shop and Site C and headed to Site A (Kg Sg Nipah).

There in Site A, we met an old MCA local leader (or ex-?) who was our strong supporter. We had a short talk and he told loads of complaints against the government.

In total, we spent half a day here and headed back to Kuala Lumpur around noon. I am pleased that we are able to touch base. This constituency—Telok Kemang— will most likely be contested by KeADILan. Sg Nipah, viz. Site A and Site C are part of the DUN known as Chuah. In 2000 by-election, KeADILan had a slight majority in the ballot boxes in Lukut and Chuah, now we shall work hard to make sure that we capture these seats.