It would not be unfair to label the upcoming Penanti by-election as the most boring by-election to date since the March 2008 general election. The outcome was already decided on nomination day when Pakatan Rakyat candidate Mansor Othman was not disqualified.

With the decision by Barisan Nasional not to field a candidate for this by-election on the grounds that it was ‘manufactured’ by Pakatan, the challenge for the opposition coalition, from Day One, was to keep up the spirits of their election workers and to prevent the public for forgetting about this by-election.

DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang has portrayed this election as a referendum on Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and his leadership, specifically on the events which have occurred over the past one month including the controversial May 7 sitting of the Perak state assembly, the recent trend of police arrests and intimidation against opposition politicians and members of civil society, the unhappiness over the allocation of the JPA scholarships and most recently, the revelation by the PWC audit report of massive losses incurred as a result of the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal.