Lembah Pantai
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Lembah Pantai is a parliamentary constituency in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, consisting of 47 divisions. Constituencies adjacent to Lembah Pantai are Seputeh, Segambut and Bukit Bintang.
Malays make up the majority of constituents in Lembah Pantai electorate at 52.8% followed by the Chinese at 25.3 %, Indians at 20.8%, and others at 1.1%. The total number of eligible voters is 56,650.
The constituency was represented by Datuk Shahrizat Abdul Jalil from the Barisan Nasional ruling coalition. She was the Member of Parliament since 1995. She was also the Women, Family and Community Development Minister in the Malaysian cabinet. She was defeated by Parti Keadilan Rakyat candidate, Nurul Izzah Anwar in the 2008 Malaysian general election.
Housing squatters had been Barisan Nasional’s trump card. To date, some 90% of squatters in Lembah Pantai have been resettled and allowed to purchase their homes, says Shahrizat. When Shahrizat first became the area’s MP in 1995, the problem of the day was squatters as well as other concerns, such as floods, fire, garbage collection, street lamps, and children’s scholarships.
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[edit] Divisions
[edit] Bangsar
One of the more popular areas which come under Lembah Pantai constituency is Bangsar, a popular upmarket residential and entertainment area. Most of the residents here are well to do and less reliant on the government. When it comes to voting, their trend is based on what appeals to the mind, which are issues such as corruption and transparency.
[edit] Pantai Dalam
Pantai Dalam is a residential area on the periphery of Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur. It is similar to the other 47 divisions in Lembah Pantai in that it is Malay-dominated, with lower and lower-middle income groups forming the bulk of the electorate.
Pantai Dalam is a perfect watershed between two groups of urban Malays: the affluent and the working class. The former live mainly in gleaming, whitewashed, RM300,000-per-unit condominiums like the Andalusia Condominium
For the working class, the luxury homes located further uphill are perhaps symbols of what one can aspire to. Most of them live in the white-turned black Kondo Rakyat with its RM43,000 a unit “condos”. Most of the area’s constituents are blue-collar workers living in flats that had been sold to them under the Projek Perumahan Rakyat Termiskin (Hardcore Poor Housing Project) when they were resettled from their squatter homes several years ago.
Many more squatters, living in Kampung Kerinchi, Kampung Limau, and Jalan Kubur, are still waiting to buy homes under this project, which was announced last June by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
[edit] References
- New dimension to urban voting, The Star, March 2, 2008.
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