History created as 945 candidates vie for parliamentary seats in GE15

PUTRAJAYA, Nov 5 — A new chapter was written in the country’s history books when 945 candidates from various parties submitted their nomination papers, the highest in the election history, to contest the 222 parliamentary seats in the 15th General Election (GE15).

Based on the data displayed at the Media Centre of the Election Commission (EC) headquarters here, a total of 441 candidates will also contest for the 117 state seats in the GE15.

Of the total number of candidates for the parliamentary seats, Pakatan Harapan (PH) has fielded the most number of candidates at 206, followed by Barisan Nasional (BN) (178), Perikatan Nasional (PN) (149), and Pejuang (116).

Other candidates are from Parti Warisan (52), Gabungan Parti Sarawak (31), PAS (22), Parti Rakyat Malaysia (16), Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (13), Parti Sarawak Bersatu (10), Putra (9), DAP (8), Parti Kesejahteraan Demokratik Masyarakat (7), Muda (6), Parti Bangsa Malaysia (5), and Parti Bangsa Dayak Sarawak (3).

In addition, Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah, Parti Sedar Rakyat Sarawak, Parti Sosialis Malaysia, Parti Perpaduan Rakyat Sabah, Parti Bumi Kenyalang and Parti Utama Rakyat, each have a candidate for parliamentary seats.

The GE15 also saw a total of 108 independent candidates contesting, thus setting another history as the highest number of independent candidates in the country's general election history.

In the GE13 and GE14, 79 and 24 candidates contested for parliamentary seats respectively.

Selangor has 22 Parliamentary constituencies, which recorded the highest number of Parliamentary seat candidates at 124 followed by Sabah (119), Perak (100), Johor (96), Sarawak (92), Kedah (68), Kelantan (63), Penang (58), Pahang (55), Kuala Lumpur (52), Negeri Sembilan (35), Terengganu (33), Melaka (25), and Perlis (13), while Putrajaya and Labuan, respectively, have six candidates each.

For state seats, Perak leads the list of most candidates at 220, followed by Pahang (150), Perlis (64), and seven candidates for the Bugaya state by-election in Sabah.

Barisan Nasional (BN) has fielded 117 candidates for state seats, PN and PH have fielded 116 candidates each, Pejuang (45), Warisan (18), and 24 are independent candidates.

In the GE14, the EC received a total of 2,333 nomination papers during the one-hour nomination period, of which 687 were for 222 parliamentary seats and 1,646 for 505 state seats.

The Election Commission (EC) has set Nov 19 as the polling day for the GE15 while the date for early voting is Nov 15.

The electoral rolls to be used for the GE15, the state polls and the Bugaya by-election would be the latest August 2022 Additional Electoral Roll as updated on Oct 9, 2022.

The GE15 electoral roll contains 21,173,638 voters. Of this number, 20,905,366 are ordinary voters, 146,737 are army personnel and their spouses, 118,794 are police personnel, including from the General Operations Force, and their spouses, and 2,741 are absentee voters abroad. — Bernama