BN NAMING CANDIDATES FROM TODAY
THE coalition’s secretary-general says state chairmen will announce their respective candidates from today until Tuesday. Both Federal Territories and Terengganu BN will be the first off the blocks this morning.
BARISAN Nasional state chairmen will announce their candidates for parliamentary and state seats for the 14th General Election (GE14) from today to Tuesday.
Its secretary-general, Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, said the announcements would be made in the chairmen’s states, and that it was up to them to choose the day of the announcement.
“For Federal Territories BN, we will announce our manifesto and list of candidates for Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan at the Putra World Trade Centre at 9am tomorrow (today).
“We have ordered BN states to announce their candidate lists in their states starting tomorrow (today) to Tuesday. They can choose when they want to make the announcement within these three days,” he said after the groundbreaking of a multi-level parking building in Presint 8 here.
“We will make sure that we fulfil our manifesto. We’ve implemented programmes that are not included in the manifesto. For example, this multi-level parking building project was never mentioned in our last manifesto, but we constructed it to address the parking woes of residents here.”
The facility will be completed in 2020.
In Kuala Terengganu, state BN chief Datuk Seri Ahmad Razif Abd Rahman will reveal the coalition’s candidates for the eight parliamentary and 32 state seats at 10.30am here today.
In GE13, BN won four parliamentary and 17 state seats. In GE14, it was expected to name more female candidates, as well as nominees as young as 27.
In Melaka, state BN chief Datuk Seri Idris Haron said its candidates for the six parliamentary and 28 state seats would be announced tomorrow at 10am.
In Kangar, the state BN is expected to announce its candidates on Tuesday.
The announcement for the three parliamentary and 15 state seats will be made at Dewan 2020 here.
State Umno liaison chief Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim said new faces were expected to contest.
He said he might also announce the Perlis BN manifesto.
In Bentong, Pahang BN chief Datuk Seri Adnan Yaakob said the coalition was expected to announce its list of candidates as soon as it received the green light from BN chairman Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
Adnan said he would launch the Pahang BN manifesto after the announcement.
Asked on his position as the assemblyman for Pelangai, Adnan said he would defend the seat.
“We have suggestions for Najib to nominate new candidates for the Paya Besar parliamentary seat and the Lepar state seat.
“Both seats are vacant after incumbent Datuk Seri Abdul Manan Ismail died on Feb 12 and Datuk Mohd Shohaimi Jusoh died on Dec 31. An assemblyman said he was prepared to step down and we (Pahang BN) have suggested a candidate to replace him.”
In Kota Baru, state BN chief Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said its candidate names would be revealed tomorrow.
He said 30 per cent of the candidates would be new faces.
In Ipoh, Perak BN chief Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abd Kadir said the state’s BN candidates had been screened to ensure that only the most “clean” candidates would be fielded.
“We need to ensure that the candidates pass the screening, which includes (checks on their) bankruptcy status, criminal record and whether they have a court case, as we are particular in selecting them,” he said after launching the Perak BN manifesto here yesterday.
When asked on seat swapping due to a constituencies’ racial demography, especially in Tebing Tinggi, which is a Malay-majority area, Zambry said whatever changes would be known only during the candidate announcement ceremony.