PETALING JAYA: Parti Sosialis Malaysia’s (PSM) youth member Nik Aziz Afiq Abdul is looking forward to voicing the concerns of the younger generation when he contests for the Semenyih state seat in Selangor in the 14th general election (GE14).
The 23-year-old said although he and his party did not have as much funds as Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Harapan, they had put more emphasis on following up on grassroots issues, such as those related to retrenchment, poverty and land matters.
“The youths of today cannot afford their own homes. They are having a hard time finding jobs after graduating,” he said.
“The expensive education fees at local private universities are causing youths there to bear the burden of having to carry a debt amounting to tens of thousands by the time they graduate.”
He said the sentiment among the residents in Semenyih was one of weariness with the ruling BN.
However, while they are looking forward to a change, some wanted an alternative other than PH, he said.
Nik Aziz was announced as PSM’s candidate for the constituency in October.
In the last election in May 2013, Semenyih was won by BN’s Johan Abd Aziz with 17,922 votes, against PKR’s Hamidi A Hassan, who managed to get 13,165 votes and PSM’s S Arutchelvan, who garnered 5,568 votes.
Merdeka Center for Opinion Research executive director Ibrahim Suffian had said if the two opposition parties had cooperated, the votes from their supporters for a single candidate would have surpassed the votes obtained by BN.
PSM is also planning to contest for the Kota Damansara, Port Klang and Sri Muda state seats, and the Subang, Hulu Langat and Hulu Selangor parliamentary seats in GE14.
Meanwhile, Arutchelvan, who is a PSM central committee member, said the Semenyih seat was important because PSM had been doing significant work there for decades to give the people another choice.
“We would not stand where we have not worked before, and winning per se is not the criteria for us to run.”
He added that the party had decided that Nik Aziz was a capable candidate for the seat as he had proven himself a number of times in PSM’s campaigns there.
He has also contributed strong ideas to the party, he added.
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2013/05/07/this-is-why-i-lost-in-semenyih/