PKR to lead the charge in Najib's home state

PKR will lead the charge in Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's home state Pahang, contesting 14 out of the 42 state seats.

Out of the four state seats that make up Najib's parliament seat of Pekan, Bersatu will contest two, PKR one, and DAP one.

Overall, Amanah will contest 11 state seats, Bersatu nine, and DAP eight.

The distribution of seats was announced by Pahang Harapan chief and Indera Mahkota MP Fauzi Abdul Rahman at a press conference in Kuantan today.

Previously in 2013, PAS led the charge for the now-defunct Pakatan Rakyat, contesting 21 state seats.

PAS is now a third force in the general election, and will fight both Harapan and BN.

Of the 21 seats PAS contested before, offshoot party Amanah will take nine, including three seats PAS won in 2013 - namely Kuala Semantan, Tanjung Lumpur and Berserah.

The Kuala Semantan assemblyperson Syed Hamid Syed Mohamed had defected to Amanah, while PAS had won Tanjung Lumpur - a Malay-majority seat - with a slim 796-vote majority.

Amanah is also contesting in Dong, which BN won by a razor-thin margin of 481 votes.

The PAS splinter group will also contest in Pelangai, the seat held by Pahang Menteri Besar Adnan Yaakob with a 2,475-vote majority.

Meanwhile, of the remaining seats contested by PAS, Bersatu will contest in seven, PKR four, and DAP one.

The one PAS seat that DAP is contesting is Pulau Manis, which falls under the Pekan parliament constituency. 92 percent of Pulau Manis voters are Malay, and BN had won in 2013 with a 5,596-vote majority.

PKR has also given up three of the seats it contested in 2013. Bersatu will now contest in Muadzam Shah and Jenderak, while Amanah will take Lepar.

Pahang will not be an easy fight for Harapan, especially in three-cornered fights against both BN and PAS.

Unlike Johor, where a number of BN-held seats are mixed-race constituencies, the Pahang BN seats are mostly Malay-majority seats.

This means that in a three-cornered fight, non-Malay support for Harapan will only give its candidates a slight advantage, and that it must secure a sizeable number of Malay votes to win.

In 2013, BN had won 30 of the state seats, while DAP won seven, PAS three, and PKR two. -Mkini