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KULIM – Perikatan Nasional’s (PN) win in the Padang Seri parliamentary seat has boosted Kedah PAS’ confidence about holding state election soon, as early as March, Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Muhammed Sanusi Md Nor said.
In a victory press conference last night, Sanusi said voters in the seat which had been a Pakatan Harapan (PH) stronghold through PKR, have shown that they reject corrupt leaders in the federal government.
He added that even if the votes of the candidates who finished third, fourth and fifth were added up, it would not be enough to overwhelm PN in the election for the seat held yesterday.
“Our opponents wouldn’t have come close even if they added all their votes up,” said Sanusi, who is also PAS elections director and state PAS deputy commissioner.
As such, he said Kedah PAS is now thinking about holding state polls soon, “perhaps as early as March next year”.
PN’s candidate Datuk “Cikgu” Azman Nasrudin, from Bersatu, won by a majority of 16,260 votes over his closest rival from PH.
With this, 14 out of 15 parliamentary constituencies in Kedah are under PN, following the 15th general election. The only federal seat held by PH is Sungai Petani.
Kedah, as well as two other PAS states, Kelantan and Terengganu, decided not to dissolve their legislative assemblies to hold concurrent state elections with parliamentary elections in GE15 on November 19.
Using a football analogy, Sanusi said that PN could have also swept Kedah’s 36 state seats if PAS had decided to hold the state and parliament during GE15.
Of the 36 state seats, PAS currently holds 15 and Bersatu six. State opposition PH has 10, while Barisan Nasional and Pejuang have two seats each. An independent assemblyman holds one more seat.
Cikgu Azman, who is also a Kedah executive councillor, said his win is a vindication after he was branded as a traitor and a “frog” for quitting PKR and joining PN in 2020.
He explained that even before he decided to quit PKR, some of the party leaders had made it difficult for him to remain by refusing to meet him because he was at the time a supporter of then-PKR deputy president Datuk Seri Azmin Ali.
“I think the arrogance of some leaders has now come back to haunt them,” he said.
In GE15, PN sprung a surprise by sweeping 73 parliamentary seats, more than pollsters and analysts predicted, to become the second largest bloc after Pakatan Harapan following the election. – The Vibes, December 8, 2022
