KEMAMAN: Tan Sri Annuar Musa today said he believed in the strength and capacity of Pas to potentially take the reins of governance in the next general election.
During a ceramah at Bukit Mentok, Chukai, the former Barisan Nasional (BN) secretary-general said Pas is strong and better organised.
The party's prioritisation of Islamic and Malay causes, he said, also made the party appealing among the populace.
"Umno is continuously losing the people's support due to the egoistic behavior of the party's main leaders.
"These leaders have sidelined efforts to unify Umno resulting in the party being rejected by the Muslim and Malay community.
"When Umno was with Pas under the Muafakat Nasional banner, they managed to secure seats during several by-elections," he said yesterday.
Annuar speculated that Umno might face rejection from its branch leaders and party members in the upcoming general election.
"We admit that Umno won 30 seats in the last general election but the seats won were in non-Malay constituencies. Umno is now like 'ice block being left under the hot sun'," he said.
Regarding the Kemaman parliamentary by-election, Annuar expressed surprise and discontent over the selection of Barisan Nasional's candidate, General (Rtd) Tan Sri Raja Mohamed Affandi Raja Mohamed Noor.
He questioned the decision to opt for an outsider rather than tapping into the local leadership pool within Umno.
"The party(Umno) has no candidate to take on Terengganu Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar. We are puzzled why the party leader who filed the petition, which paved the way for the Kemaman by-election, was not picked.
"It is quite surprising... where are the other local leaders, deputy division chief (Datuk Wan Ahmad Nizam Wan Abdul Hamid) who is former football club president, division vice chairman who is a contractor and youth chief. None of them were nominated and an outsider was instead selected to contest," he said.
The Kemaman parliamentary seat by-election is a straight fight between Ahmad Samsuri and Raja Mohamed Affandi, a retired Armed Forces chief.
The Kemaman parliamentary seat by-election was necessitated by the Terengganu Election Court's decision to nullify the victory of Pas candidate Che Alias Hamid in the 15th general election, setting the stage for a significant electoral contest.