Najib, who is standing as an independent in his former seat in the upcoming Johor state elections, asked if a study had been carried out before PAS decided to switch him to Simpang Jeram.
“If a study was done, the results should have been given to me,” Sinar Harian quoted him as saying. “Where are the results of the study? I do not know. However, based on my own study, if I changed my seat to Simpang Jeram, it would be like ‘hanging myself’.”
Najib claimed that based on his study, 89.4% of the residents in the Bukit Pasir area did not agree to him moving to another constituency, and a few PAS leaders disagreed with the decision not to renominate him for the Bukit Pasir seat.
He said the party’s decision to field him for the Simpang Jeram seat was only made known to him on Feb 23, a day before Perikatan Nasional announced its list of 56 candidates for the elections.
However, he said he had rejected the decision as it meant that he would be facing off with Amanah deputy president Salahuddin Ayub.
Najib said the PAS leadership contacted him again and tried to persuade him to accept the decision, but he said that he “will think about it”.
He claimed that the new candidate for Bukit Pasir only had to “clean his feet” as Najib had already developed the infrastructure for the residents during his tenure.
“If I were moved to another constituency, it’s as if I’d have to ‘clear the bushes and forest land’ as I did when I first contested in Bukit Pasir,” he said.
On Feb 27, Johor PAS commissioner Abdullah Husin said the decision to move Najib to another seat was due to communication problems between him and the Bukit Pasir election machinery.
Abdullah said Najib, who won the seat for the first time in 2018, needed to contest a different seat as the state chapter was concerned that he could not defend Bukit Pasir.
He maintained that Najib was never sidelined by the party.
Earlier, PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said Najib had been sacked from the party for standing as an independent against a fellow party member, Nur Iqbal Abd Razak, for the Bukit Pasir seat.