Aidi Amin: From the eyes of a young reporter

For a rookie reporter like me, covering my first by-election has been truly a mentally and physically exhausting process.

Certain things were also not as how I expected.

For one, I had anticipated much more smear campaigning and personal attacks from the contesting parties, especially in their daily ceramah and also in cyber-space.

Also, I expected much more tension and hostility in the air as I had read that the Galas N45 state seat was vital for both the Barisan Nasional and Pas as it was a kind of "warm up" in preparation for the next general election.

BN's Abdul Aziz Yusoff, 49 is in a straight fight for the seat against Dr. Zulkefli Mohamed, 44, from Pas.

I was told by my seniors earlier, that the two prominent figures to look out for would be BN's election director for Galas, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Pas spiritual leader, Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat. Both were better known as Ku Li and Tok Guru respectively.

I was also briefed that both parties were going to adopt a different campaigning strategy this time - much to my dismay, there was not going to be many heated ceramah which I had heard about in past elections. Their approach was going to be more "civil" this time, with focus on house to house visits and meeting the voters on a more personal basis.

I had heard from my colleagues in Pre-Editorial Trainning Scheme (Pets) who had covered the Hulu Selangor parliamentary by-election that they were under intense pressure to keep tabs on all the leaders and happenings in the constituency.

This time round, I was also told that we would have to constantly contribute to NST Online and that our work was cut out for us, coupled with the fact that the team was much smaller than that sent to Hulu Selangor.

When we arrived in Gua Musang, it seemed like a beautiful place against a backdrop of limestone hills and caves. However, it was also a kind of culture shock for me, having gotten used to the likes of Starbucks, Kenny Rogers and other "hang out" joints in the capital.

I guess I was just being kind of "kiasu" and kept comparing this quiet, laid-back town to the likes of the Klang Valley. Being the proud city-boy that I am, even the insects here freaked me out, looking rather pre-historic compared to those from where I come from. I had the horror of getting stuck with one of these "killer bugs" in the back seat of a car with two of my colleagues several nights ago. However ... I survived to tell the tale!

The people, even the youths in Gua Musang seemed complacent with their pace of life, with many of them telling me that they have worked in bigger towns, but could not take the pace there and decided to return home. I wondered if this was due to the lack of development and progress in the state and also because there was not even a single internet cafe in town.

I recalled reading about the Pygmalion and Rosenthal effects, which is a kind of phenomenon where people only perform according to the expectations placed on them, whereby in this state, the expectations were much lower and thus the complacency and lack of challenges.

The only other excitement during my visit, apart from the election, was the Malaysia Cup hype with the whole town eagerly waiting for the clash between Kelantan and Negri Sembilan in the finals.

Football and sepak takraw seemed like the only games the youth here were interested in.

The Red Warriors, as the Kelantan team was known were kind of idols to the teens here and the excitement on match day, last Saturday was far greater than the by-election.

I was also impressed with the silent cease-fire reached by both the contesting parties that day, as they say football brings us together - there was hardly any talk of the by-election that day as the town was filled with football-related activities and big screens set up around town.

The excitement after Kelantan won the game was immense and it poured over to the next day with Tengku Razaleigh and Kelantan Football Association (KAFA) president, Tan Sri Annuar Musa equating the victory to the kind of change needed here in Galas.

I am a critic of prepared texts at functions, celebrations and political events but on that day I believe Ku Li spoke from his heart when he said he was saddened by the lack of infrastructural development in the constituency.

As time went by and after speaking to more locals over a game of sepak takraw, I realised that being 36-years-old and unemployed in this town was fine. It was hard to digest this and I figured that to understand the reasoning behind this complacency, I needed to meet more locals.

The chance came when I was assigned to focus on writing human interest stories because there were not many issues to be debated during the campaign. In my quest to find the right words, I decided to travel further and meet more locals, many of whom were fluent in Mandarin as they had studied in Chinese kindergartens.