TUMPAT, Sept 14 — PAS is banking on wresting Pengkalan Kubor to pressure Putrajaya to change its policies, saying its victory in the September 25 polls would signal the people will not stand for a federal government that continues to deny their home state of its rightful oil royalties but squeezes the populace through taxes and outdated laws.
Kicking off campaigning for the Kelantan state seat last night, the Islamist party went on the attack against the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition even as it acknowledged that winning the rural town bordering Thailand would not affect the state government, which it has run unbroken since 1990.
"We have to send a signal, even though if we win, it won't change the government.
"But if we do win, it would show the people's dissatisfaction with the the federal government," deputy president Mohamad Sabu told a group of some 50 people who showed up to listen to its first political rally here.
Popularly known as Mat Sabu, the politician said a vote for PAS would equal a vote against the federal government's unjust policies.
As example, he highlighted the federal government's recent clampdown on dissenters under the Sedition Act 1948, the introduction of the controversial goods and services tax (GST) and the federal government's refusal to pay Kelantan oil royalties.
Mat Sabu argued that the Kelantan government would be able to provide more financial assistance for welfare programmes with money from oil royalties the federal government "owed" the state.
Party president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang who took to the stump before Mat Sabu, also spoke on Kelantan's oil money woes.
"The oil belongs to the Kelantan people because the oil sits in Kelantan waters.
"Meanwhile, Sabah and Sarawak both get oil royalties, but not Kelantan. This is a crime," the Terengganu-born said.
PAS has persistently argued that the oil mined off its shores belongs to the northeast but Putrajaya has just as persistently batted off those claims, insisting that the oil fields belong to the federal government and as such, it needs pay no royalties.
Vice-president Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said the state government could have done much more for its people if it had received its rightful oil royalty from the federal government.
He said it could be Umno's strategy to "pressure" Kelantan into not providing enough funds for infrastructure, and to "make them regret choosing PAS" as the state government since 1990.
"Every time there is election, the people chose PAS each time, which means the Kelantanese don't care because the federal government's strategy didn't work, even though we all know we are not doing as well as Selangor.
"We have to fight this injustice," he said.
Both PAS and Barisan Nasional have until midnight of September 24 to campaign for the state seat.
PAS, seen as having the upper hand in this race as the party governing the state, could lose out as most of its leaders and members would be in Johor between September 16 to 20 for its annual convention.
