PETALING JAYA: Pakatan Harapan (PH) says it has narrowed the gap with Barisan Nasional (BN) a week into the campaign for the Cameron Highlands parliamentary by-election and that a victory is not beyond reach.

PH election director Wong Kah Woh said the coalition was the underdog at the start of the campaign but “now we are closing the gap”.

However, it is still too early to estimate PH’s chances of winning the polls, he said, adding that everything boils down to efforts to be put in by the coalition in the remaining days of this week.

“It is not impossible (for PH) to win. The possibility of winning is there,“ he told China Press in an interview published today.

Wong, who is DAP’s Ipoh Timur MP, noted that Cameron Highlands is a typical mixed constituency and PH needs to focus on the votes of all the four major communities – Malay, Chinese, Indian and orang asli.

“(But) Our main target now is to maintain the support of Chinese and Indians who make up the bulk of voter base,“ he said, taking cognisance that in the last general election, PH garnered only 10% of Malay votes and 10% of orang asli votes.

“We want to increase our votes (from all the ethnic groups). AS such in the last one week, we have mobilised a number of heavyweights such as DAP’s Lim Kit Siang, secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, deputy president Gobind Singh Deo and PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to meet voters.”

The by-election will see a four-way fight among PH, BN and two independent candidates.