Credit : Bernama
MELAKA, November 1, 2026 – Barisan Nasional (BN) is confident that the performance of the Melaka state government over the past five years will be one of the main things fence-sitting voters weigh when they choose their candidates in the 16th Melaka state election on November 14, Melaka BN chairman Datuk Seri Ab Rauf Yusoh said, Bernama reported.
Ab Rauf, who is also the Chief Minister, said undecided voters would judge a party’s direction by how well it had run the state and how effectively its policies and initiatives had directly benefited the people, according to Bernama.
“These fence-sitters look at the direction of the party that will be given the mandate to govern any state or the country. So they will look at what we have delivered to the people while we ran the state before they choose,” he told reporters after checking on BN’s election machinery at its operations room for the Telok Mas state seat on Sunday.
Programmes cited
He named the state government’s Wakil Rakyat Untuk Rakyat (WRUR) programme, the Hari Exco Bertemu Rakyat (HEBAT) sessions and the Chief Minister’s Jelajah Ketua Menteri Sayang Rakyat tour as among its efforts to reach such voters, saying they focused on finding and solving people’s problems.
Ab Rauf said that through WRUR, the state government had resolved about 75 per cent of some 4,800 complaints it had received on a range of community needs and problems. The figure is his own and Bernama did not give an independent breakdown.
“So we did the work early, so that the people are not ‘sweet-talked’ during the election, during the 14-day campaign. This matters because we must treat our posts as elected representatives as a way of serving the people, not the people serving us,” he said.
He added that fence-sitters also looked at whether each candidate understood the community’s needs. “First, an elected representative must be one of the people before he can represent them. He must know the people’s problems and needs, listen to what they say and bring it to me so that I can set the policies the government can carry out in future,” he said.
Ab Rauf said BN would leave it to the people to judge the state government’s work before they decide on polling day. “I hope what we have done and delivered will be the best measure for them to keep working together with us in running Melaka,” he said.
The contest
Ab Rauf is defending Tanjung Bidara in a straight fight with Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) Mohd Yunazri Mustamiri. Telok Mas, where he spoke, is a three-cornered fight between BN’s Abdul Razak Abdul Rahman, PH’s Mohamad Jaafar and Bersama’s Hazwan Mustafa, according to the candidate list on the Election Commission (SPR) dashboard.
His claims about the state government’s record are his own. The Bernama report did not carry a response from PH, Perikatan Nasional or other parties. Earlier on Sunday, PH election director Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari said PH would name Deputy Defence Minister Adly Zahari, a former Melaka Chief Minister, as its choice for Chief Minister if it wins a majority, Bernama reported.
Key dates
The SPR has fixed November 10 for early voting and November 14 as polling day. A total of 79 candidates are contesting the 28 state seats over a 14-day campaign, with 687,697 registered voters, according to the SPR.
Credit : Bernama
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