THE Election Commission (EC) delayed the announcement of the Rantau poll to stall Barisan Nasional’s (BN) momentum after it won the three past by-elections, said Mohamad Hasan.

Mohamad, who is BN’s candidate for the Rantau polls, said the EC took one month to announce the dates of the by-election when the usual timeframe for the announcement is one week.

“When EC meets for by-elections, they usually will announce the nomination the following week. They took a month to announce their dates (for Rantau),” he told reporters at a BN ceramah in Rantau tonight.

“This was done to stop BN’s momentum in Cameron Highlands and Semenyih,” the Umno acting president said.

He said the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government wants him to lose because a loss for him will affect the progress that BN has made in the past few months.

Hasan said Rantau is not an important seat to PH but the coalition wants to see BN and Umno crippled.

“They don’t want me to win, because Umno and BN’s resurgence will be stopped (if I lose). So my progress must be stopped,” he said.

The Rantau by-election is a four-corned fight between Mohamad, PKR’s Dr S. Streram, and independent candidates R Malar and Mohd Nor Yasin. – March 31, 2019.