ROMPIN Today is the D-Day for Rompin by-election, the 10th by-election after the 13th general election of May 2013.

This by-election comes after the incumbent, Jamaluddin Jarjis, known as JJ, died in a helicopter crash on April 4.

Voting for the 52,744 voters starts at 8am and ends at 5pm.

Already, 464 people or 85.1% of the 545 early voters fulfilled their civic duty last Thursday, April 30. There are also five absent voters in this by-election.

Rompin covers three state constituencies - Bukit Ibam, Muadzam Shah, and Tioman and has 38 voting districts.

The rural seat has 87 percent Malay, two percent Chinese, and nine percent from other ethnic groups.

PAS battling in a BN stronghold

Rompin is a BN stronghold. In the last five general elections, BN defeated PAS with more than 6,000-majority votes each time.

In GE13, Jamaluddin even beat former PAS Wanita chief Nuridah Mohd Salleh with a 15,114 majority, an increase from the 10,679 votes he won in the 2008 general election.

This time, it is a straight fight between BN candidate Hasan Arifin, 62, a former Pehang deputy menteri besar, and Pahang PAS Youth chief Nazri Ahmad, 40.

Hasan ( right ) was the former assemblyperson for Bukit Ibam and Tioman, giving him an edge over Nazri, who is an ustaz.

Nazri, being a second-generation Felda settler, has an advantage, too. The parliamentary seats has 14 Felda settlements and in his campaign, Nazri pledged to the voters that PAS would fight for the plight of the Felda settlers, who make up more than half the voters.

Is GST a real barometer?

The by-election is also seen as a gauge of the general sentiments toward the month-old goods and services tax (GST), on which PAS strongly campaigned against.

However, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin rebutted this, saying the poll results involved many factors , with GST being only one of them.

Based on a survey by Malaysiakini, most voters said they are severely affected by GST and some even said they would vote against BN this time.

Will Mahathir's prediction come true?

Apart from GST, the feud between Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has also spiced up the by-election.

Mahathir has warned that if Najib continues his leadership, BN and Umno will lose in the next GE.

Since then, Najib's supporters have made public pledges of loyalty, but Mahathir's ally Daim Zainuddin pointed out that the support may be superficial, for it was the norm for Umno members to publicly back their president.

While Umno is likely to retain the seat, which is adjacent to Najib's own Pekan constituency, a slash in the majority in Najib's home ground will allow Mahathir to claim moral authority in the allegations he has levelled against Najib - and which are resonating with the people.