Nomination Day

PREPARING FOR NOMINATION DAY: Students walk past Election Commission workers putting up a banner at Dewan Al Muneerah in SMK Petra Jaya, Kuching, on the eve of Nomination Day. — Bernama photo
Candidates have one hour from 9am today to register for the polls
KUCHING: Candidates accompanied by their proposers and seconders will converge on nomination centres throughout the nation today to register for the 13th General Election (13th GE).
A total of 31 nomination centres in the state will open from 9am to 10am today for candidates to submit their nomination forms.
Although the lists of candidates from all parties are supposed to have been finalised, there is still a possibility of some surprises today.
The state Barisan Nasional (BN) named all their 31 parliamentary candidates including eight new faces, on April 16 but several incumbents who were dropped continued to harbour hopes they would be re-nominated.
This issue has been resolved except in Mas Gading and Saratok where the incumbents and their supporters have not been appeased.
The Mas Gading incumbent Datuk Dr Tiki Lafe has declared he will be defending his seat despite being dropped by BN while in Saratok supporters of Jelaing Mersat continue to protest against his omission from the list.The opposition front, Pakatan Rakyat( PR), only managed to resolve their bickering over allocation of seats among its component parties; PKR, DAP and PAS yesterday.
Both PKR and DAP only finalised their lists after much bargaining and horse trading over overlapping claims on several seats.
Sarawak Workers party (SWP) announced its full line-up on Thursday while STAR unveiled its candidates yesterday.
It is expected that every seat in the nation will be contested with BN and PR as the main proponents and several smaller parties and independents trying their luck.
The last parliamentary election was held in March 2008 and the parliament was dissolved on April 3.
In Sarawak BN will contest in 31 seats while PKR (15), DAP (11), PAS (7), SWP (6) and STAR (8).
The seats where the contests are expected to be very keen are Bandar Kuching, Stampin, Mas Gading, Saratok, Sibu, Selangau, Lubok Antu, Hulu Rajang, Miri, Baram and Julau.


Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2013/04/20/nomination-day/#ixzz2QyjrKevB