KUANTAN: The Pahang state legislative assembly has been dissolved to make way for elections to be held simultaneously with the 15th General Election.
Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Wan Rosdy Wan Ismail said he had an audience with the Regent of Pahang Tengku Mahkota Tengku Hassanal Ibrahim Alam Shah Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah.
Wan Rosdy said the Regent had given his consent for the state assembly to be dissolved on Friday (Oct 14).
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"There have been many rumours and questions on whether Pahang will follow suit in holding simultaneous elections.
"This date (Oct 14) is chosen to allow the state 2023 budget to be tabled and debated, then passed so it can be implemented next year.
"All of these were done for the sake of the people because a bulk of the budget revolves around helping the people in this state," said Wan Rosdy.
He said the dissolution was also to avoid repetitive elections even though there were still several months left on the state assembly's term.
"If Pahang does not take part in GE15, we will have to go through the election process again at the state level. This will require huge resources, time and focus, which can be avoided if Pahang joins the elections at the Federal level," he said.
Wan Rosdy added that this could save costs and also smoothen administrative business with the next Federal Government.
On the achievements of the Barisan Nasional-led state government for the past 53 months, Wan Rosdy said Pahang had recorded many groundbreaking or unprecedented accomplishments.
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"This is especially evident with revenue collection, which has exceeded RM1bil. Efforts in bringing in investments have reached RM20.5bil in value while the state's debt has been reduced by 71%, from RM3.31bil to RM952mil," he said.
Wan Rosdy said this was all accomplished because of political stability in Pahang's administration.
"In this Barisan state government, there is no such thing as extortion and threats of party-hopping. There's only stability and strong cooperation," he said.
Wan Rosdy thanked the people for placing their trust in the state government and assured them that Barisan would do even better should the mandate be returned.
"My hope is that our excellent achievements and the exciting agenda in the state 2023 budget be taken into consideration in retaining Barisan's mandate," he said.
Wan Rosdy said the chances of Barisan winning even more state seats were good as the people could see for themselves what the state government had achieved.
"For example, they can see how the state government worked very hard to assist flood victims. Even now, we have allocated RM47mil for early flood preparations," he said.
