PAS's candidate Nazri Ahmad, 40, for the Rompin parliamentary by-election is a representative of the younger generation as many voters in the constituency are aged 39 years and below, said PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu.

He said he hoped fielding the Pahang PAS Youth chief would boost the number of votes from among the younger group to the party.

This was echoed by PAS vice-president Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man who said young voters would shift to the party seeing Nazri, a second generation Felda settler.

"Nazri is aware of the problems faced by Felda settlers and is capable of helping to solve them," he told reporters after the nomination for the by-election at Dewan Jubli Perak Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah here, today, which saw Nazri challenging Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate Datuk Hasan Arifin.

According to a statement by the Election Commission (EC), the number of young voters below the age of 39 in the Rompin Parliamentary seat is 24,603 people or 46 per cent of the 53,294 voters in the area.

Meanwhile, touching on the absence of DAP's top leadership at the nomination centre, Mohamad said it was because there are not many Chinese voters in the area.

Mohamad, earlier had headed a procession accompanying Nazri to the nomination centre, which was also joined by two PAS vice-presidents Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man and Salahuddin Ayub and secretary-general Datuk Mustafa Ali, other than two Parti Keadilan Rakyat vice-presidents, Nurul Izzah Anwar and Tian
Chua.

Mohamad said PAS, at the same time, would campaign using the strategy of appealing to voters to perform a change in the parliamentary seat which has been controlled by BN for a long time.

In the meantime, Nurul Izzah said she hoped the campaigning would proceed smoothly and not be tarnished by personal attacks against the contesting candidates.

"I am quite happy that they fielded a local candidate and I hope that the campaign will avoid personal attack and only be issue-based," she said.

The by-election is being held following the death of incumbent Tan Sri Dr Jamaluddin Jarjis in a helicopter mishap in Semenyih, Selangor on April 4.

There are 53,294 registered voters in the Rompin constituency comprising normal voters (52,744), early voters (545) and absentee voters (five).

Early voting is on April 30 while polling on May 5.