Kit Siang: Voters will punish PAS in coming by-elections for causing Pakatan split
(MMO) – Lim Kit Siang dismissed claims today that PAS would fare well in the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections, saying instead that the Islamist party would likely face the wrath of voters in both seats for causing Pakatan Rakyat’s (PR) breakup last year.
The DAP veteran claimed the party only did as well as it did in the two seats in Election 2013 because it had campaigned there as a member of the PR pact.
“In the forthcoming by-elections for both Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar, in a one-to-one contest with Umno, the PAS candidates in both constituencies cannot win higher votes but only lower votes as not only non-Malay voters but a sizable number of Malay voters will not vote for PAS because PAS had caused the disintegration of Pakatan Rakyat,” he said.
PR was dissolved last year when DAP and PAS went head-to-head on the implementation of hudud, an Islamic penal code.
In Election 2013, PAS was beaten in both seats by Barisan Nasional (BN) with marginal victories of just 399 votes in Sungai Besar and 1,082 votes in Kuala Kangsar.
Lim, however, said PAS would not fare as well as it did in 2013 but was more likely to repeat its performance in the 2004 polls when its candidates only managed to garner just over 30 per cent of the total votes cast in both seats.
The DAP adviser disagreed with the view that a one-to-one contest between PAS and BN in both constituencies would send a message of change to the ruling pact.
He pointed out that PAS’s leaders have in the past defended Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and indicated they were friendly to ruling Umno, despite the controversies plaguing the BN administration.
