PETALING JAYA: Land issues will take centre stage in the upcoming Galas by-election in Kelantan and PAS believes it has the upper hand on this.
According to PAS election committee adviser Wan Abd Rahim Wan Abdullah, land issues will make up at least 80% of the campaign.
On this note, he said the party was proud of its former assemblyman Che Hashim Sulaiman's track record. Che Hashim's demise had paved the way for the Nov 4 by-election.
"We are confident of what Che Hashim has done for the rakyat here. And now we are expected to be the intermediary between the smallholder rubber farmers, the land office and the PAS-led state government," he told FMT.
He said if the people of Galas chose Barisan Nasional, the latter would not be able to resolve such matters.
He added that the community here, many of whom are rubber tappers, are attached to their land and are happy when their elected representative helps them in that regard.
Apart from land for farming, he added that the people of Galas also seek land when their families grow bigger.
"Land is abundant in Gua Musang and the PAS-led state government has been assisting in the allocation of land,” he said, adding that several hundred plots were given to a new developing village in Tanah Puteh.
Wan Abd claimed that BN, during its reign from 1978 to 1990, did not tackle the land issue properly.
"What they did was take back land and in one case there was some 300 acres in a Chinese majority area, which they took back and was supposed to develop an army base but that, until today, did not happen," he said.
However PAS is also not without any land controversies of their own. Voters have claimed that the opening of 'Ladang Rakyat' (people's estates) in Hulu Kuantan had not been beneficial to them where parcels of land were taken from them and given to private companies to implement the project.
Gua Musang Umno deputy division chief Mat Yusof Abdul Ghani had claimed that voters will vote against PAS on this issue.
On another matter, when asked if oil royalty will be a topic during the by-election, Wan Abd Rahim said it is not the "bread and butter" issue there.
PAS is the underdog
Meanwhile, the PAS election adviser conceded that his party is the underdog in this contest.
"If we consider the results of Manik Urai, only 54% of the people voted for us. Taking that experience and applying the same loss of votes to Galas, where we won by 646 majority (in the 2008 general election), we will be going in with a losing figure," he said.
In the Manik Urai by-election in July 2009, which is about 30 minutes away from Galas, PAS won by a slim 65-vote majority.
However, Wan Abd Rahim, the Kota Baru MP, vowed that PAS will work doubly hard.
Yesterday, Gua Musang PAS division acting chief Dr Zulkefli Mohamad was announced as the party's candidate for the state assembly seat. BN will name its candidate over the weekend.
The voter count in Galas stands at 11,553, of which there are 7,125 Malays (61.63%) , 2,317 Chinese (20.08%), 185 Indians (1.6%), 1,889 indigenous people (16.37%), 10 Sarawak Bumiputeras (0.9%), and 127 postal votes.
The Galas constituency is 1,881.48 sq km in size, which is larger than Malacca. Nomination is on Oct 26.
In the 2008 general election, Che Hashim made history when he became the first PAS candidate to win a seat in the Gua Musang parliamentary constituency, defeating BN incumbent Saufi Deraman. Two other seats in Gua Musang – Nenggeri and Paloh – are held by BN.
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