PORT DICKSON (Oct 8): PAS has questioned the readiness of the Pakatan Harapan candidate for the Port Dickson parliamentary by-election, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, to serve the constituents if he is elected.

This, said PAS candidate Lt Col (Rtd) Mohd Nazari Mokhtar, is in view of the plan by Pakatan to appoint Anwar as prime minister upon Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's expected retirement by 2020.

"There is no certainty that the promises for this constituency can be fulfilled [by Anwar] because of time constraints from being the prime minister," said Nazari during a Facebook Live session with Utusan Online.

Meanwhile, Nazari accepted the commonly held view that development funds for a prime minister's constituency is pretty much secured.

"But if you go to the constituencies of former PMs, not much improvement is seen," he added.

He cited as examples Pekan, Pahang, where ex-prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is a long-time MP, and Alor Setar, Kedah, which was a stronghold for Dr Mahathir during his term as the fourth prime minister.

Nazari has been campaigning to improve Port Dickson's economy by turning it into an Islamic tourism attraction site, as well as proposing to adopt Musang King as a key agricultural commodity for the beach town, from oil palm presently.

Apart from Anwar and Nazari, five other candidates are contesting in the by-election to be held on Saturday, after PKR MP Danyal Balagopal Abdullah vacated the seat to pave the way for Anwar to be elected to Parliament.

In the 14th general election on May 9, Danyal won with a majority of 17,710 votes against Datuk VS Mogan of Barisan Nasional and Mahfuz Roslan of PAS.