‘Secret reason’ behind Najib’s challenger

Kamarul Ariffin, the opposition candidate for Pekan, urges Umno to be professional and avoid personal attacks.

PETALING JAYA: There is “a secret reason” for a first-timer being fielded as the opposition candidate to take on Barisan Nasional chairman Najib Razak in his home constituency of Pekan.

But PPBM’s Kamarul Ariffin Mohd Sahar said the reason could not be revealed.

“Let that remain a secret,” Kamarul told FMT.

“Not everyone in Pekan likes him,” he said, recalling that Najib had once been given a scare when he won by only 241 votes against a PAS candidate in 1999.

Najib has served eight terms as MP of Pekan, in succession to his father, Malaysia’s second prime minister Tun Abdul Razak, who had held it from 1959.

Kamarul urged Umno members to behave professionally and avoid making personal attacks in the election campaign.

He said he had inside information that Umno members would seek to embarrass him.

“I was shown some messages in an Umno WhatsApp group where some of them said they will seek to shame me,” he said. “If that’s the game they want to play then I can shame them more than they need to be shamed but I don’t want it to get to that.”

He was formerly head of Umno Indera Mahkota but switched to PPBM, and he believes his experience in Umno would help him to take the fight to Najib.

Kamarul, a football consultant, said his hope was for a level playing field in the coming campaign. “There’s no need to move the goal posts or take cheap shots. Let’s just make this a clean and fair fight.”

Opposition candidates from Pakatan Harapan’s component parties will be contesting the general election in a united front, using the PKR ticket and party symbol.

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