A Parti Keadilan Rakyat (Keadilan) division in Pahang has dissolved after 500 of its members defected to Umno and declared their support for Barisan Nasional (BN).

According to a Bernama report today, the Indera Mahkota division members, including its chief Rozali Alias, switched camps last night.

Rozali's deputy Razak Kassim said the move will automatically dissolve the division and its members would assist BN's election machinery in the Indera Mahkota and Kuantan parliamentary constituencies.

In both these Malay-majority seats, Keadilan candidates are fighting incumbent BN/Umno contenders. Indera Mahkota is a new seat, while in Kuantan, Keadilan Wanita chief Fuziah Salleh lost by a 7,361 majority in 1999.

Razak further claimed that the members had decided to defect because Keadilan was not headed anywhere and its leaders were only interested in pursuing personal interests.

Razak submitted their application forms to join Umno to BN's candidate for Beserah Faizal Abdullah.

Pahang is the home state of Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, who will be defending his Pekan parliamentary constituency.

PAS defection

In a related issue, 300 PAS members in Selangor also defected to Umno yesterday.

They were from the Segemal branch which comes under the Sungai Burong state seat, which is held by PAS Selangor chief Dr Hasan Ali.

This crossover could be detrimental for Hasan as in 1999, he won the seat with a slim majority of 91 votes. He bagged 5,5,91 votes compared to BN/Umno hopeful Md Aini Taib's 5,500. There are 18,428 voters in this area which falls under the Umno-held Tanjong Karang parliamentary seat.

Led by the former PAS Segemal branch head Masnan Karsomijo, the members handed their Umno membership forms to the BN candidate for Sugai Burong Mohd Shamsudin Lias.

Mohd Shamsudin said he was moved by the defection by PAS members who had sincerely joined Umno.

"I am confident that the electorate in the Sungai Burong state constituency will reject Hasan firstly because of his (unsatisfactory) service," he was quoted as saying in a Bernama report.

Meanwhile, Masnan said that during the more than four years that he became a PAS member, he had not received any benefit at all.

"In the general election this time, the group from my branch and I decided to leave the party and support the local (candidate) who is clearly much better," he said.

He was also confident that many PAS members from the other areas would also leave quietly and vote for the BN candidate this time.