TEMERLOH, Nov 14 — Barisan Nasional (BN) is ready to face whoever is nominated by the opposing parties in the Kemaman parliamentary by-election, said its chairman, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

"We are ready to face anyone, whether it is a former leader from our party who betrayed (us) or from the party whose victory was nullified,” he told reporters, after inspecting the implementation of Phase 1 of the Sungai Semantan Integrated River Basin Development project here today.

Ahmad Zahid said this when asked to comment if PAS fielded a former Umno leader as a candidate in the Kemaman by-election, since former Ketereh Member of Parliament (MP), Tan Sri Annuar Musa, had also been mentioned as one of the proposed names for the by-election.

PAS has so far not announced the party’s candidate, but among the names said to be on the shortlist are Terengganu Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar and Che Alias Hamid, who won the seat in the 15th General Election (GE15), before the Election Court nullified his victory.

BN has announced the former Chief of Defence Forces, Gen (Rtd) Tan Sri Raja Mohamed Affandi Raja Mohamed Noor, as the candidate in the by-election.

In a related development, Ahmad Zahid, who is also the deputy prime minister, said that BN will follow the standard operating procedure (SOP) to campaign in a flood situation, if a disaster occurs during the by-election period as the north-east monsoon is expected to hit the country this month.

"We will follow the SOP set by the Election Commission (EC), but (campaigning) at the temporary evacuation centres, in my opinion, is important for us to appreciate and meet the flood evacuees first,” he said.

The Kemaman parliamentary by-election is being called following the Terengganu Election Court’s ruling on September 26, which nullified the victory of Che Alias Hamid, from Perikatan Nasional (PN), with the EC having set the polling day on December 2, with the nomination day on November 18 and early voting on November 28.

In GE15, BN candidate, Datuk Seri Ahmad Said, lost to Che Alias, with a majority of 27,179 votes, thus witnessing PAS dominate all 14 parliamentary seats in Terengganu. — Bernama