BUKIT MERTAJAM: PAS' win but with a reduced majority in the Permatang Pasir state seat by-election on Tuesday had been expected.

Among the cause factors are that, Permatang Pasir has been a PAS stronghold for three terms now and strengthened by the fact that the member of parliament for Permatang Pauh, under which Permatang Pasir is one of its three state seats, is Parti Keadilan Rakyat advisor Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

The Permatang Pasir by-election saw a straight fight between PAS candidate Mohd Salleh Man, 52, and Rohaizat Othman, 38, from Barisan Nasional (BN), following the death of the incumbent assemblyman Datuk Mohd Hamdan Abdul Rahman.

Universiti Sains Malaysia's (USM) political science lecturer Dr Sivamurugan Pandian said PAS' reduced majority was due to less number of people voting as polling was held on a working day.

He said the Anwar factor also contributed to PAS' victory as Anwar continued to receive support from various communities.

"Anwar always said in his ceramah (political talks) that one vote for the PAS candidate was a vote for him and also for the opposition pact-led state government," he told Bernama, here, on Tuesday.

"That statement by Anwar drew the votes from all the communities as the people of Permatang Pauh generally support Anwar."

He said the candidate factor should also be considered, because even though Rohaizat had cleared his name of the accusations against him while Mohd Salleh was not a popular figure and had never won in a general election after six attempts, victory was still on PAS' side.

Sivamurugan said another factor that contributed to BN's defeat was that some voters from the BN component parties did not support and vote for BN.

He said their disloyalty to BN was proven when it received only 5,067 votes while there were 5,600 BN members in the area, including 5,400 from Umno.

Author Kassim Ahmad said Umno's loss in the by-election was expected as the people still wanted to give the opposition pact a chance to pursue their agenda.

"Although PAS' majority votes dropped, the number did not even reach 1,000, indicating that the people here still believe in the opposition pact and reject the BN government's policies and systems."

Kassim said issues like the mysterious death of political aide Teoh Beng Hock, corruption, and lack of integrity and morals raised by the opposition were still influencing the thinking of voters.

"There are those who want the government to introduce the two-party system as practised in Europe and because of that, they support the opposition so as to put pressure on the BN government," he said.

In the by-election, PAS retained the Permatang Pasir seat with a 4,551-vote majority when its candidate Mohd Salleh garnered 9,618 votes while BN's Rohaizat obtained 5,067 votes. (Bernama)