MALAYSIANS KINI In a dilapidated office in Jelapang, Ipoh, M Sarasvathy spoke in the dark. The electricity had failed in the midst of a late afternoon thunderstorm; waning sunlight filtered through the windows, barely illuminating the room, which covered wall to wall with campaign posters.

On one wall, Hugo Chavez smiles in a printout of a picture from 2009, when Saraswathy met the socialist giant in Venezuela.

“He was talking about people, people, people,” the PSM vice-chairperson recalled excitedly.