Meet and greet: Mohd Johari meeting the people during a walkabout at the Kuala Rompin weekend market. — Bernama
ROMPIN: The Barisan Nasional candidate has welcomed the willingness of his rival from Pakatan Harapan to make way for him in the race for the Tioman state seat in the 15th General Election (GE15).
Datuk Seri Mohd Johari Hussain (BN-Umno) said the gesture of Mohd Fadzli Mohd Ramly (PH-Amanah) symbolised a high level of maturity following Pakatan’s support for Barisan in forming the Pahang state government, in addition to taking into account political developments at the federal level.
“I take in the positives in the statements made by our Pakatan friends who are backing me to ensure the new state government formed is led by Barisan.
“This is what we can call a harmonious unity government,” he told Bernama during a campaign walkabout session here yesterday.
Mohd Johari said he learned that the offer was being discussed at the state leadership level but no firm decision had been made so far.
Prior to this, Mohd Fadzli expressed his willingness to give way if asked to by the presidential council, but admitted that no official instructions had been issued so far. Even with the “give way instruction”, Mohd Fadzli cannot pull out from the race and his ballots will still be counted.
Polling for the Tioman seat has been postponed to Dec 7 following the death of Perikatan Nasional candidate Md Yunus Ramli.
Apart from Mohd Fadzli and Mohd Johari, other candidates vying to win the seat are Nor Idayu Hashim (PN-PAS), Osman A. Bakar (Pejuang) and Independent Sulaiman Bakar.
Tioman has 28,465 voters including 28,200 ordinary voters and 262 early voters.
The GE15 results saw Barisan winning 16 seats in Pahang, one seat behind Perikatan while Pakatan secured eight seats.
