KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 7 — PAS will negotiate with its Pakatan Rakyat partners to field its own candidate in the Pengkalan Kubor by-election on September 25.
The party’s secretary-general, Datuk Mustafa Ali, said both PAS’ and PKR’s state leadership in Kelantan had agreed in principle to put a PAS candidate after several rounds of talks.
“However, this will be up to the central leadership of PKR, PAS and Pakatan Rakyat. We will meet in the near future, and a decision will be made definitely before nomination day,” he said at a news conference here.
PAS and PKR have been at odds over who should field a candidate for the coming contest, with PAS insisting that it will perform better than its Pakatan Rakyat (PR) ally in the Umno-held seat.
The latest disagreement between PKR and PAS comes on the back of a larger tiff between the two party’s central leaderships over who should be the next Selangor mentri besar.
Both parties have clashed over the issue in the past month, with PAS refusing to back PKR’s plan to replace incumbent MB Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim with PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.
The Pengkalan Kubor seat fell vacant after incumbent Datuk Noor Zahidi Omar died of liver cancer on August 27.
Noor Zahidi won the seat for a third time in last year’s 13th General Election, defeating PKR candidate Saharun Ibrahim and an independent by a 1,736-vote majority.
National news wire Bernama quoted the Election Commission as saying that there are 24,039 eligible voters in the constituency, 92 per cent of whom are Malay.
