Kelantan DAP chairman Azaha Abdul Rani said the decision was made because the party’s leadership was not involved in BN’s campaign due to the absence of an official invitation, as confirmed by DAP secretary-general Loke Siew Fook.

“We have given our supporters in Nenggiri the freedom to choose which party they wish to support and to act in their best interests.

“We originally had plans if DAP was involved in the campaigning,” he told FMT without elaborating.

Azaha said the state DAP would adhere to the central leadership’s decision not to be involved in the campaigning.

“The leadership decided not to campaign after Umno said it did not want DAP to be involved (in the Nenggiri by-election campaign), believing it is strong enough to win (without DAP). There has also been no invitation,” he said.

On Tuesday, Loke said DAP would not assist in campaigning for the BN candidate, Azmawi Fikri Abdul Ghani, as no invitation had been received.

“If there had been an invitation, we would have participated (in the campaign). However, so far, we have not received any invitation from them,” he said.

DAP previously indicated its willingness to assist BN’s campaign for the Aug 17 by-election if requested by the unity coalition. However, Umno adviser Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah said there was no need for DAP to campaign in the by-election.

The poll will see a straight fight between BN and Perikatan Nasional (PN), represented by Rizwadi Ismail who recently joined Bersatu from PAS.

Nenggiri has 20,259 voters on the electoral roll. The seat was won by BN in four consecutive elections from 2004 until last year, when PN’s Azizi Abu Naim defeated Umno’s Ab Aziz Yusoff with a majority of 810 votes.

The seat was declared vacant on June 19 after Bersatu informed the state assembly speaker that Azizi had ceased to be a member of the party on June 13.