State BN chief Ahmad Said claimed he was made to understand that PAS initially wanted to re-nominate Che Alias Hamid, whose victory at last year’s general election (GE15) was nullified by the election court.

“Initially, they were going to field someone else, but they changed their candidate when they heard that (BN’s candidate) is a retired general,” Ahmad told FMT.

On Monday, BN named former defence forces chief Raja Affandi Raja Noor as its candidate for the Dec 2 by-election.

Last night, PAS named Samsuri, a party vice-president, as the Perikatan Nasional (PN) candidate for the by-election.

The former head of the aerospace department at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Samsuri is also the Ru Rendang assemblyman and a former aide to PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang. He is serving his second term as Terengganu menteri besar.

Ahmad questioned if Samsuri would be capable of looking after the parliamentary constituency, considering his duties as menteri besar as well as an assemblyman.

“Does he have the time to look after the people (of Kemaman)? Now that he’s menteri besar, he doesn’t even visit Ru Rendang (in Marang), but now, he wants to take care of Kemaman. Does he think it will be easy to look after such a large area?”

The former Terengganu menteri besar expressed confidence that Raja Affandi would be able to chalk up a surprise win by working aggressively to win over the voters.

“He is a Kemaman boy and went to school here. Even now, he’s going to the ground to meet the voters,” Ahmad said.

In GE15, Ahmad lost to Che Alias in Kemaman. The PAS candidate won the seat with a 27,197-vote majority.