BARISAN Nasional will bank on Umno Supreme Council member Lokman Noor Adam to win the Sungai Kandis state seat from Pakatan Harapan in the upcoming by-election.

Lokman, a Najib Razak loyalist and vocal Pakatan Harapan critic, was formerly the Finance Ministry’s strategic communications director when Najib was in power. Lokman recently founded the group Pemantau Malaysia Baru.

His candidacy was announced today by deputy Umno president Mohamad Hasan at the Kota Raja Umno division office in Shah Alam.

“After careful consideration and with the approval of the Kota Raja division, the party president (Ahmad Zahid Hamidi) has agreed to nominate Lokman as BN’s candidate for the Sungai Kandis by-election,” Mohamad said.

The Sungai Kandis seat fell vacant after its PKR rep Shuhaimi Shafie died of cancer on July 2. The by-election is the first for PH since taking over the federal government in the May 9 polls.

In GE14, Shuhaimi won the seat with 23,998 votes, beating BN’s Kamaruzzaman Johari from Umno (11,518); PAS’ Mohd Yusof Abdullah (7,573) and Parti Rakyat Malaysia’s Hanafiah Husin (76).

Polling for the by-election has been fixed for August 4. Nomination day is tomorrow.

Mohamad said the freeze imposed on Umno’s accounts as part of investigations into 1Malaysia Development Bhd will not hinder the party’s campaign for the by-election.

“We will campaign using words, not money. We will go from house to house, introducing the candidate and sharing information with constituents.”

He said PAS cooperated by not fielding a candidate, as a three-cornered fight would not benefit any party.

“We held talks with PAS. The Umno president met with the PAS president, and among the things discussed was the by-election.

“Both parties understand that there is no point having a three-way fight.”

With PAS staying out of the contest, Lokman is up against PKR’s Zawawi Ahmad Mughni, a religious school principal with a master’s in Education and a degree in Arabic from the famed Al-Azhar University in Egypt.

Lokman is now probably best known as a defender of his former boss, Najib, who has been charged with criminal breach of trust and abuse of power over the SRC International scandal.

SRC International is a former subsidiary of 1MDB.

Following Najib’s downfall, Lokman has been defending the former head of Umno and BN and his family.

In a recent interview with The Malaysian Insight, he maintained that Najib had been cleared of any wrongdoing in connection with the 1MDB scandal.

He also accused PH of training its guns on Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, when it could not find dirt on the former prime minister.

Lokman said Najib lost Umno and Malay support because he did a lot for the Chinese, despite the community not supporting BN.

In the past, he had defended another Umno leader in trouble – Anwar Ibrahim, after he was sacked by Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 1998.

Lokman standing up for Anwar got him into trouble with the Umno leadership, but he also won admirers. – July 20, 2018.