GEORGE TOWN: Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow today denied any friction in DAP, saying state and national party leaders campaigned for the Pakatan Harapan candidate in the recently-concluded Sungai Bakap by-election.
"We saw Lim Guan Eng (national DAP chairman), Gobind Singh (national DAP deputy chairman), Anthony Loke (DAP secretary-general) and other leaders — including Steven Sim, Lim Hui Ying, M. Kulasegaran and me — lending our support.
"I was present for 10 to 11 days of campaigning, at different times of the day, sometimes at dinner and other times during ceramah.
"All this is based on arrangements made and depending on the strategy.
"So all DAP leaders were on the ground during campaigning."
He was commenting on claims by Gerakan president Datuk Dominic Lau that the DAP campaign machinery was divided and only those supporting Chow helped in the campaign.
He said this after the first EV truck cross-border launch at Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah here.
Lau had said that the strong understanding in Perikatan Nasional's election machinery convinced voters to vote for PN's Abidin Ismail.
He said this understanding was not present on Pakatan Harapan's side, especially DAP.
Meanwhile, Chow said the party had not conducted a post-mortem on the results, especially non-Malays' low turnout.
"Based on my observation, the low turnout cost us 2,500 votes.
"But if you analyse the results, it suggested that voting along racial line was prevalent, where more than 80 per cent of Malay voters voted for PN. PH won more than 80 per cent of non-Malay votes.
"Despite that, we did not lose our non-Malay voters, especially the Chinese."
PN retained the state seat in Saturday's polls.