Pakatan Harapan's menteri besar candidate for Perak has yet to be decided, but a key figure for Amanah has been Nizar Jamaluddin, who was in 2008 installed as menteri besar when the federal opposition captured the state.

His tenure lasted less than a year, following the collapse of the Pakatan Rakyat state government after the defections of DAP and two PKR assemblypersons.

Despite the collapse, Nizar, who was with PAS at that time, remained popular and won with a bigger majority in the 2009 Bukit Gantang parliamentary by-election, seen as a referendum on BN's Perak coup.

But Nizar's star power appears to have faded somewhat after Pakatan failed to recapture Perak in the 2013 general elections...