TUMPAT, Sept 26 ― PAS's failure to deal with its internal rift sparked by the Selangor Mentri Besar post crisis contibuted to the party's defeat in today's Pengkalan Kubor state seat by-election, Umno deputy president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said last night.

The deputy prime minister suggested that the split in the party had distracted PAS from focusing on its campaign here, which led to its poor performance.

“The poor results was caused by the PAS leadership conundrum that can be seen during the muktamar and also of what is going on in Selangor,” he told a press conference held after the polls results were announced here.

Barisan Nasional (BN) retained the Pengkalan Kubor state seat defeating PAS with an increased majority in yesterday's by-election, continuing its dominance in the constituency.

Its candidate from Umno, Mat Razi Mat Ail garnered 9,991 votes while PAS's Wan Rosdi Wan Ibrahim bagged 7,326, losing with a majority of 2,635 votes or close to 900 more than in the previous election.

In last year's national polls, Umno's Datuk Noor Zahidi Omar beat Saharun Ibrahim of PKR and independent Izat Bukhary, who also contested today, with a 1,736 majority votes.

PKR agreed to make way for PAS to contest this time around since the Islamist party, which has ruled Kelantan for more than two decades, would likely have a better chance at winning with the state machinery behind it.

Observers believe the internal split in PAS and the absence of its top leader for the most part of the by-election became a setback to its campaign although it later dismissed the idea as untrue.

Most of PAS's top leaders were away throughout the campaign, focusing much of their energy at a fractious muktamar last week where the progressive and religiously conservative factions clashed over the manner in which the party had dealt with the Selangor mentri besar post crisis.

Muhyiddin said other factors like the choice of candidate and BN's ability to “address the right issues” also helped the 13-party coalition win.

“All programmes were well executed. We had a good candidate in Mat Razi and most importantly we addressed the important issues in the constituency including the oil and gas royalty,” he said.

Oil royalty was PAS's major campaign theme in its effort to sway local voters against backing Umno but observers noted that the issue failed to gain traction.

Up to 73 per cent of the 23,929 voters had cast their ballots at the 11 polling centres in the Pengkalan Kubor state by-election when polling closed at 5pm today, according to the Election Commission (EC).

The rural seat is 90 per cent Malay and many are known to be staunch backers of BN. 

Mat Razi's win means BN retains its 11 seats in the Kelantan state legislative. PAS has 36 and PKR has one.