While Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s (UTM) Mazlan Ali believes Amanah should field the candidate, Mujibu Abd Muis of Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) believes an Umno candidate will have a better chance.

Lenggeng is one of the state seats under the Seremban parliamentary constituency. In the 14th general election, PH, through Amanah, wrestled the seat away from Barisan Nasional with a 986-vote majority.

On Monday, Negeri Sembilan PH chief Aminuddin Harun said PH and BN had yet to decide which coalition would field a candidate for the Lenggeng state seat.

The Negeri Sembilan caretaker menteri besar said he would leave it to PH chairman Anwar Ibrahim to decide which party should contest the seat in the Aug 12 polls.

Speaking to FMT, Mazlan said the Amanah incumbent, Suhaimi Kassim, would prove to have a crucial advantage for PH and BN as he was already known to the voters and the community.

“If the seat is given to BN, the candidate will require a lot more time to adapt himself to the constituency,” said Mazlan.

Meanwhile, Mujibu believes PH should make way for BN to contest as fielding an Umno candidate would be PH-BN’s best bet to prevent Perikatan Nasional from snatching the seat.

He said Umno had more influence in Negeri Sembilan than Amanah as the party only had three representatives in the previous state assembly.

“The chances of winning are probably higher for Umno-BN because that seat was taken from Umno in GE14,” Mujibu said.

In GE15, DAP secretary-general Loke Siew Fook defended the Seremban parliamentary seat for a third term by defeating PN’s Fadli Che Me with a 30,844-vote majority.

BN’s Wong Yin Ting, Pejuang’s Jani Ismail and an independent candidate Izzat Lesly, were the other candidates in the five-cornered fight.