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200 Hew Wai Weng

captured it in 2018. Bangi, and especially the section called Bandar Baru Bangi
(Bangi New Town), started as an urban-development project under the New
Economic Policy (NEP) to increase the urban Malay population. ISMA’s main
o ce is located in Bangi, while many ABIM and IKRAM activists also reside
in the township. Today, Bandar Baru Bangi is largely middle-class and Malay,
with many middle-class housing areas (some of them gated) and a number
of low-cost apartments for the less well-o . Sungai Ramal also includes older
sections of Bangi and parts of a neighbouring town, Kajang. Bangi is known as
a ‘bandar ilmu’ (knowledge township), as it is home to the National University
of Malaysia (UKM), Selangor Islamic University College (KUIS), and many
Islamic institutions, schools, and kindergartens; it is also considered a ‘bandar
fesyen’ (fashion town), for its many Muslim fashion boutiques. Indicative of
local Muslim sentiment is the fact that Bangi’s local council disapproved plans
to open a cinema there (Hew 2018c).
After controversial redelineation exercises nationwide by the Election
Commission (EC) shortly before GE14 (see Wong, this volume), the state
constituency of Bangi got not only a new name (Sungai Ramal) but also
an increase in Malay voters, from about 66 per cent to 80 per cent. Such
a demographic change might have enabled UMNO to wrest the seat back.
However, Bangi was instead a battleground between PAS and Amanah;
perceived as corrupt, UMNO was not popular among many urban, educated,
middle-class Malay-Muslims. Representing PAS was Ustaz Nushi Mahfodz,
a KUIS lecturer, celebrity preacher, and son of a veteran PAS leader. Having
graduated in Islamic Studies in Jordan and appearing frequently on Islamic-
themed television and radio programmes, Nushi Mahfodz appealed to voters
with his religious credentials and down-to-earth approach. Amanah’s candidate
was Mazwan Johar, a lawyer and former local PAS leader. Inspired by the
late Nik Aziz’s commitment to implementing hudud in the 1990s, Mazwan
Johar had joined PAS about twenty years previously. Formerly a personal aide
to former PAS assemblyman for Bangi Sha e Ngah, Mazwan quit to join
Amanah in 2015. He stated that he would like to continue Nik Aziz’s struggle
in Amanah by upholding the Islamic cause within the multicultural context of
Malaysia (interview, Mazwan Johar, 23 April 2018). UMNO’s candidate for
Sungai Ramal was Abdul Rahim Mohd Amin, a local party leader.
Both PAS and PH campaigned on the issues of the GST and corruption
to attack UMNO. e parties’ leaders also verbally attacked each other:
PAS labelled PH as ‘dominated by DAP’ and ‘not Islamic enough’, while
PH criticised PAS for ‘using Islam for political gain’ and ‘having a deal with
UMNO’. To appeal to Bangi voters, religion was central to all three parties’

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