As I was passing IJok yesterday, I was amazed at the activity that was going on there. There were road blocks on both sides, every vehicle was stopped and questioned. It reminded me of a curfew era. Why all this commotion for a by-election in a small area of just 12,000-odd voters.

Who must win or who must lose?

The ruling coalition has all the big guns working overtime at Ijok, to the amusement of the locals. For once, the people of Ijok are treated like royals. We have the deputy prime minister on house visits, we have S Samy Velu with his tsunami hairstyle together with 'MGR' on stage and not to be outdone, the MCA president is walking around and lifting babies for the cameras!

Why this hypocrisy? Well, this is politics at the highest level to see how low you can go. And the winners? The simple folk of Ijok.

As I was passing Jalan Tengku Kelana in Klang later, I couldn't help stopping at a roadside astrologer, just out of curiosity. I asked him if he knew of the by-election going on at Ijok. He was excited he said, 'Of course!'

He mentioned that he knew the late K Sivalingam, assemblyperson for that area. I asked him that based on his predictions, who would win. Without hesitation he said PKR and this took me by surprise!

When I asked him why, he said the BN candidate K Parthiban's time was not right and that the alignment of the stars currently were not in his favour.

I asked him what PKR's majority would be and he said '603'. What! When asked why such a number, he said if that number was right, I should give him a bonus. Now I need to go, sorry. I may have to find some extra cash by Monday morning to keep my promise.