PETALING JAYA: Fuziah Salleh is depending on strong grassroots support to take her to victory in the April 25-May 11 PKR elections.
“I’m popular in my own way,” she told FMT in a recent interview.
“I may not be popular like a pop star, but the grassroots know me. I have helped them in one way or another in the past 15 years.
“I’m a grassroots person. I spend time listening to their problems and teaching them skills. It’s not a glamorous job, but not many party leaders have the patience to sit down and listen to the grassroots.”
Fuziah, who is MP for Kuantan, is an incumbent in the vice-presidential race.
She believes that victory belongs to leaders who have the respect of the grassroots. She said they liked leaders who could assist them in their day-to-day political activism.
She said she preferred addressing small groups to speaking at big ceramah.
“I prefer smaller ceramah for about 50 people where, at the end of the day, I will be able to convert them [into the party].
“Many people can give ceramah, but not many have the patience to meet 20 people and make them understand what the party fights for.”
Some observers have said that the vice-presidential race is harder this time around than in 2010.
Besides Fuziah, the other incumbents are Nurul Izzah Anwar, N Surendran and Tian Chua. Their challengers are Rafizi Ramli, Baru Bian, Mustaffa Kamil Ayub, R Suresh Kumar, N Shanmugam, Streram Sinnasamy, Mohd Yahya Shahri, Lee Chin Cheh, Shamsul Iskandar Mohd Akin and Xavier Jeyakumar.
Fuziah disagreed that it would be a tough race for her, citing her activism in the Lynas and Kuantan flood issues.
“Because of these two issues, people’s perception of me is that I am one who is attached to the grassroots—although low-profile, always delivers,” she said.
She pointed out that there were votes for her at every party branch in the last elections.
“My votes were collected all over the country. This shows that I have genuine supporters.
“I may be disadvantaged in terms of media coverage, but whenever new party members meet me, they are reminded of what I have done for the party.”
She said she was not attached to any particular team fighting in the polls.
“It’s simply not my style,” she said. “I prefer to be independent. But that does not stop me from showing support to some candidates.”
Official results as of April 27 showed that Fuziah was trailing the others in the veep race. She had garnered 2,004 votes as opposed to Nurul Izzah was heading the list with 5,610 votes, followed by Rafizi Ramli (5,018), Tian Chua (4,833), Baru Bian (4,417) and Shamsul Iskandar (3,491).
Also ahead of Fuziah were Xavier with 3,410 votes, Lee Chin Chen (2,330) and Mustaffa Kamil (2,040).
There were five candidates below her in the latest count, with Surendran getting the lowest number of votes (542).
