The party made some inroads in Melaka in the 13th general election (GE13) in May 2013, winning its first-ever state seat after its candidate Dr Md Khalid Kassim won the Bukit Baru state seat, which is now known as Bukit Katil.
With PAS being in Pakatan Rakyat at the time, and having the support of PKR and DAP, Khalid beat Umno’s Karim Yaakob with a razor thin margin of less than 50 votes.
The Islamist party then decided to head into GE14 in May 2018 on its own, having left the then opposition coalition. However, it failed to defend its lone state seat and lost in all the 24 contests it took part in, with 10 of its candidates losing their deposits.
Khalid, too, contested in the parliamentary seat of Hang Tuah Jaya and lost his deposit after getting less than 10% of the total votes cast.
In the upcoming Melaka polls, PAS arrives with a new look, working with the Perikatan Nasional (PN) bloc and adopting its logo.
Eight of the 28 state seats have been allocated to PAS, while the rest will be contested by its coalition partners Bersatu and Gerakan.
Melaka PAS chief Kamarudin Sidek said his party will fight harder this time around because the main goal is victory for the coalition, as opposed to GE14 where its participation in 24 seats turned the election into more of a sport or game.
“A positive development for PN is that there are only some voters who are confused between the colours of PN and Barisan Nasional,” he said, with both coalitions donning different shades of blue.
“The feedback I have received having met with voters, especially in the state constituency I will contest (Duyong), was that they want change because they see BN’s image as somewhat tarnished by the unrest they caused prior to the collapse of the state government,” he said.
Kamarudin added that interestingly, in many places he had campaigned, voters were attracted to PN because of the reputation of the previous federal government led by former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin.
He said Muhyiddin already had a high profile when Covid-19 hit the country, and further made a positive impression by establishing the National Recovery Plan.
“Today, we are blessed and successful enough that Melaka can move to Phase 4 together with other states. This will help boost the image of Muhyiddin’s government among the people here.
“Overall, it is not impossible to see a change of government come Nov 20, in the form of a new alignment or something else,” he said.
In GE14, Kamarudin came out third in a four-way contest with PH-DAP’s Damian Yeo, BN-MCA’s Lee Kiat Lee and an independent candidate. Kamarudin obtained 2,938 votes, while Yeo won the seat with 7,642 votes against Lee’s 4,747 votes.
This time around, Kamarudin is confident that he could get more votes by being a part of a coalition. He is also hopeful that the Islamist party will win at least one seat when the votes are tallied.
Melaka goes to the polls on Nov 20, with early voting on Nov 16.