KUALA BESUT, July 12 — PAS is unfazed by its candidate Azlan Yusof’s lack of a university education, saying today fancy paper qualifications were not vital to be an effective people’s representative or to their fight against poverty.

The Barisan Nasional (BN) had been burnishing Tengku Zaihan Che Ku Abdul Rahman’s civil engineering credentials from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM ahead of polling day on July 24 as a pitch to rural electorate hungry for development.

In contrast, Azlan, known popularly to locals as Che Long, holds a contractor certificate from the Malaysian Industrial Training Institute.

“He’s not going to be a lecturer speaking in a hall. He wants to be a representative who is close to his people,” PAS vice-president Datuk Husam Musa told reporters here.

“He’s not going to be an engineer,” he added, a dig at Tengku Zaihan’s previous job as an engineer for Besut Drainage and Irrigation Department.

According to Husam, the most important quality required of a Kuala Besut assemblyman is to highlight the aspirations of the people, and to ensure that the wealth of Terengganu trickles down to its folks.

Both BN and PAS have nominated fresh-faced young professionals to court the votes of rural Kuala Besut, a fact acknowledged by Husam, who is also the by-election director.

“The concept we’re using is to use a fresh candidate... Sometimes, we have to eat fresh fish, we have to eat fresh vegetables,” he added.

PAS information chief Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man had heaped praises on Azlan, describing the businessmen with the words “sene kkiro, mudoh bbaso”, meaning “easy to deal with, easy to speak to” in the east coast Malay dialect.

“That’s the sign that he’s a good, he’s modest, close with the people,” Husam replied today when asked about Azlan’s shy demeanour.

“Grassroots leaders are usually like that,” he added.

Azlan faces BN’s Tengku Zaihan Che Ku Abdul Rahman in a straight fight after nomination closed today without any other challengers being named.

The Kuala Besut by-election will be held on July 24. The state seat has 17,679 registered voters.