Mohd Hasan confirms he will defend Rantau seat

Announcement ends speculations that the Negeri Sembilan Menteri Besar may be moved to a parliamentary seat

SEREMBAN: Negeri Sembilan Menteri Besar, Mohamad Hasan, yesterday confirmed that he will defend his Rantau state seat in the 13th General Election.

“Some people said that I will contest a parliamentary in the General Election. Don’t worry…I aim to fulfill whatever promises I made. I will defend the Rantau state seat,” said Hasan.

He was adrressing about 1,000 people, mostly Chinese, after officiating the opening of a Community Hall at Rahang New Village in Seremban last night.

Hasan’s announcement put paid to speculations that he might be moved to a parliament seat and be made a cabinet minister.

Sources had told FMT earlier that Hasan may be fielded in the Rembau parliament seat which is currently held by Umno youth chief, Khairy Jamaluddin.

There was also speculation that Mohd Hasan had proposed to PM Najib Tun Razak that Rasah Umno deputy chief, Senator Najeeb Abdullah, be made MB should he be dropped.

Hasan, Najeeb, Jempol MP Lilah Yassin, Kuala Pilah MP Hasan Malek and Senaling state assemblymen Ismail Lasim are the frontrunners to be MB if BN retained Negeri Sembilan.

But according to a Negeri Sembilan Umno source, Najib prefers Work Minister, Shaziman Abu Mansor, to be the next Menteri Besar.

In another development, there is a possibility that long serving Information Minister, Rais Yatim, will be dropped as the Jelebu parliament candidate and be replaced with a younger person.

Former Menteri Besar and current Bagan Pinang state assemblymen, Mohd Isa Abdul Samad, is speculated to contest in Telok Kemang parliament seat.

However, it is not known which parliament seat will be offered to the MIC in place of the Telok Kemang seat, a traditional MIC seat.

MIC is believed to be asking for the Jempol parliament seat but Jempol Umno is resisting the request.

All these developments indicate that the BN has yet to sort out seat allocations among BN components parties and the winnable candidate within the respective component parties.