ARMED forces veterans’ group Patriot will not back PAS’ candidate, a retired air force officer, running in the Port Dickson by-election, maintaining its neutral stance in politics.

The decision follows the group’s initial outrage when former Port Dickson lawmaker Danyal Balagopal Abdullah stepped down earlier this month to make way for PKR president-elect Anwar Ibrahim.

Patriot called Danyal’s resignation a betrayal to voters and armed forces veterans who had campaigned and supported him in the run up to the 14th general election.

Prior to Danyal stepping down, the veterans’ group had urged PKR to leave Port Dickson alone as Danyal was – out of 300,000 armed forces personnel – its sole representative in Parliament.
 
Danyal’s resignation was said to have been engineered for Anwar, who is seeking to be the 8th prime minister in two years’ time after Dr Mahathir Mohamad steps down.

The move has had critics questioning Anwar’s rush to return to Parliament.

Yesterday, PAS announced that Lieutenant-Colonel (Rtd) Mohd Nazari Mokhtar would be fielded to challenge Anwar in the army town.

However, senior Patriot member Captain (Rtd) Wong Ang Peng said the group would not be supporting Nazari, despite several members’ criticism of Anwar.

“No, Patriot will not. Though individual members are quite critical of Anwar, our group’s stand is to remain neutral,” Wong told The Malaysian Insight.

Wong added that Anwar had recently said he would meet with Patriot soon, but did not specify when.

“We hope Anwar will keep his word of looking into the welfare of veterans after he assumes office and we wish him all the best,” said Wong.

“Anwar recently said that he would meet Patriot soon. We look forward to this meeting.”

Nazari will go up against Anwar, former Negri Sembilan menteri besar Isa Samad – who is contesting as an independent – another independent, Stevie Chan, and a Parti Rakyat Malaysia candidate.

The Port Dickson parliamentary seat has 75,212 registered voters, comprising Malays (43%), Chinese (33%) and Indians (22%).

Nomination is tomorrow and polling day is on October 13. – September 28, 2018.