Sterner measures must be employed to ensure PAS renegade candidate for the Taman Medan state seat in Selangor, Ghazali Saari withdraws, said Parti Keadilan Rakyat's (Keadilan) hopeful Wan Mohd Razali Wan Kadir.

He said it was obvious that the candidate was not afraid of PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang's threat to sack him should he contest. A similar threat was also made by the party's Selangor commissioner Dr Hassan Ali.

"I think the leaders should come down here and literally pull the candidate by the ear to go to the Election Commission's officer to withdraw," he stressed when met yesterday.

Wan Mohd said the errant PAS candidate should be sacked with immediate effect.

"Why doesn't the party just sack him now. Please don't give him too much face. Are they afraid that he might just win. Will the party spare him if he wins?" he asked.

PAS and Keadilan are allies in the opposition front Barisan Alternatif (BA). The former decided to pull out from Taman Medan to avoid a split in the opposition votes.

It is reliably learnt that Ghazali was a stand-by candidate and has earlier been issued the letter of authorisation by the PAS leadership.

Other candidates in the running are Barisan Nasional's Abdul Wahab Ibrahim and Independent Kamarul Jaman Seeni Mohideen.

Campaign continues

Meanwhile, the Keadilan candidate claimed that while PAS operations rooms in the area have closed, its election machinery is continuing its campaign for Ghazali.

"I met some PAS workers last night. I thought they were going to pull down posters of the PAS candidate but to my horror, they were actually putting up more posters!" he exclaimed.

Commenting on the issue, PAS Selangor liaison secretary Norman Taha said the party has issued a statement urging members and supporters to vote for Wan Mohd.

When met in the area last night, a PAS supporter claimed that Keadilan is partly to be blamed for the fiasco as well.

"Although the seat was allocated to Keadilan, it only managed to identify the candidate at the last minute, the night before nomination day. By that time, Ghazali and his workers had spent a lot of time and money to face the elections," he added.

"They (Keadilan) are so slow... look at them... it's just two days away from polling and they have yet to put up posters of their candidates. How can PAS supporters have confidence in them?" asked the supporter who declined to be named.

He said that opposition supporters here are not familiar with Wan Mohd, who is not a local, whereas Ghazali has been on his rounds since last year.

Responding to these claims, the Keadilan candidate said his party machinery is trying its level best to speed up campaign workers.

On him not being a local, he said: "We are not talking about a remote constituency like Tanjung Karang. This is Taman Medan."

"Most of the residents here are new settlers who come from other states. They are just trying to find an issue to reject me," he added.