By Neil Brian Joseph

BN Youth has submitted proposed candidates list

KOTA KINABALU: The youth wing of Barisan Nasional (BN) has submitted a list of its proposed young candidates to the party’s leadership, its chief Khairy Jamaluddin said.

For this time around, BN’s youth wing had proposed more young candidates, as compared to the number of young candidates that they had suggested in the previous election, Khairy said.

However, he explained that it would be up to the party’s leadership to decide whether or not these proposed candidates would actually be fielded in the 14th General Elections (GE14).

When asked to reveal the percentage of young candidates for GE14, Khairy, who is also the Umno Youth chief jokingly said: Ada. Tapi saya tak ingat (Yes, there is but I could not remember).

“We are hopeful that we will have a good representation of young candidates in the upcoming GE14. I hope that BN Sabah will field more young candidates, more than the (number of young candidates) in the previous election, especially Umno Sabah.

“We want to see a better combination of experienced leaders and young leaders. It is very important for the party, both at Umno level and Barisan Nasional, (which is) the bigger level to demonstrate that we have young talents coming to the ranks.

“Not only that, we are willing to field them, especially in winnable areas,” said Khairy, who is also Umno Youth chief.

When asked whether the young candidates in Sabah had been identified, Khairy asserted that that question could only be posed to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

Khairy, who is Youth and Sports Minister, spoke to reporters after chairing a meeting with the BN youth leaders of the state at Le Meridien Hotel on Saturday.

“I had just finished chairing a meeting with the Barisan Nasional Youth leaders of Sabah. The meeting featured briefings from the party’s youth leaders in regards to (the party’s) preparation for the 14th General Elections.

“I can conclude that the youths of Barisan Nasional are 100 per cent ready to face the upcoming election, in terms of machinery preparation as well as its plans,” he said, adding that he was confident that the party would be able to win the hearts of young voters in GE14.

He disclosed that BN Sabah had conducted various programmes for its youths, citing the recent colloquium and National Transformation 2050 (TN50) dialogues as examples.