![\"PAS](\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Kumar-silambaram.jpg\")
<\/p>\nKUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26 – Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim will face PAS in the Port Dickson by-election, party president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang announced tonight.<\/p>\n
He said the decision was made during a PAS central committee meeting in Kuala Terengganu tonight, Malaysiakini reported.<\/p>\n
With Barisan Nasional officially announcing on Monday that they would be “boycotting” the by-election over the circumstances it is being held, this would make PAS the only serious alternative for voters in the popular resort town.<\/p>\n
The parliamentary seat was vacated by PKR\u2019s Danyal Rajagopal Abdullah on September 12, just four months after he won the seat in Gthe 14th general election held on May 9.<\/p>\n
He won the seat with a majority of 17,710 votes, defeating BN\u2019s Datuk V.S. Mogan, who is from MIC, and Mahfuz Roslan, from PAS.<\/p>\n
The Election Commission has set nominations for September 28 and polling for October 13.<\/p>\n
MIC was the first to announce it would not be putting up a candidate under the BN ticket. It was expected that Umno would put their candidate instead, until the announcement yesterday by BN chairman Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, prior to the late decision made by PAS, the party in general was not interested in contesting the seat.<\/p>\n
Instead, it is believed that PAS had a “friend” who was going to stand in the PD by-election to try and win the Indian votes.<\/p>\n
The voter demographic for PD comprises 43% Malays, 33% Chinese, 21% Indians and 3% others.<\/p>\n
Former MIC vice-president Kumar Silambaram had announced he would contest the seat, but surprisingly pulled out of the race yesterday.<\/p>\n
Kumar had successfully applied to be part of the PAS-led Gagasan Sejahtera coalition in March this year, as announced by PAS President Datuk Seri Hadi Awang on his Facebook page.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Now with PAS candidacy confirmed, it is not surprising that Kumar back-off from the PD by-election.<\/p>\n
However, some observers had suggested that Kumar would have been an ideal candidate as he could have split the non-Malay votes. But now that he won\u2019t, the main beneficiary will likely be Anwar.<\/p>\n
There are other candidates who have announced will be standing in Port Dickson, are Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM) and an independent, Stevie Chan.<\/p>\n Stevie Chan Keng Long had dropped his hat in the ring to stop “the arrogance of one man who had forced this by-election to happen”, he had been quoted as saying.<\/p>\n He stands an outside chance with the sentiment among many PH supporters that Anwar was wrong to “work” his way back into Parliament so soon, and in this manner.<\/p>\n Still, facing two pro-Islamic agenda candidates from established parties, Chan knows he has a major uphill battle.<\/p>\n – NMT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26 – Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim will face PAS in the Port…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[57,1915,1918,1757,1448,1917,1916],"class_list":["post-832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-anwar-ibrahim","tag-hadi-awang","tag-kumar-silambaram","tag-pd-by-election","tag-pd-move","tag-prm","tag-stevie-chan"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Stevie](\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Stevie-Chan-300x300.jpg\")