THE FORTRESS WAS ALMOST KNOCKED DOWN

IT was said to be a fortress, an impenetrable political one that is. The Manek Urai state constituency in Kelantan was described as one that had managed to withstand all attempts by the arch rival to capture it for as long as one can remember.

The late Pas politician Ismail Yaacob won it for five consecutive terms but his death some weeks ago forced the by-election on Tuesday which saw fish wholesaler Mohd. Fauzi Abdullah facing the challenge from Umno's Tuan Aziz Tuan Mat. You can read the result any which way you want. In March last year Ismail won by a majority of 1,352 votes but this time Fauzi managed to scrape through only by 65 votes.

A win is still a win, we have to agree, but Pas cannot be overjoyed with what happened on Tuesday.

A better way to assess the situation would be to look at the percentage votes received by each of the two parties. Last year Pas had 55.61 per cent of the votes against the 42.52 per cent by Umno but Tuesday saw a substantial swing in the percentage votes for Umno. Tuan Aziz managed 49.15 per cent, an improvement of 6.63 per cent from last year, while the votes for Fauzi totalled 49.75 per cent, a decline of 5.86 per cent for Pas.

Kelantan Mentri Besar and Pas spiritual adviser Nin Aziz Nik Mat thinks the swing to Umno was due to the development pledges made by the Barisan Nasional federal government. And I thought that after what happened in March last year and the subsequent victories by the Pakatan Rakyat parties in several by-elections since then that development no longer gives the ruling coalition a clear advantage!

Or some may say it's because of the change in the Umno leadership in Kelantan from Annuar Musa to Mustapa Mohamed or the hopes and expectations that come along with the new federal leadership under Najib Razak. I don't know and I wouldn't want to put my thinking cap on to try and determine the reasons, for I think it's pointless to try and think what 10,748 Kelantanese had in mind when they went out to vote on Tuesday.

But while the failure to take over Manek Urai from Pas may have been another letdown for Umno, I'm sure that what is more crucial and gives it some encouragement is the increase in the percentage votes received. This becomes more significant when taken together with what happened in the Bukit Gantang Parliamentary by-election last April.

Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin won by a bigger majority compared to the late Roslan Shaharum also of Pas in March last year but the higher votes for Pas came from the non-Malays while Malay support for Umno in the constituency when up by five per cent in April compared to last year.

Thus Umno would have every reason to feel stoked, that there is hope after all and the tide may be slowly changing in its favour as it prepares for the next general election in four years time. But Umno cannot be too confident either. After all what Pas has just gone through at its fortress should be a constant reminder that sometimes it's impossible to predict the trend in politics.