Big rush for nomination papers points to a crowded affair

PUTRAJAYA: With just two days to go to the big day, the Election Commission has already sold more than 5,000 copies of nomination papers, a possible indication that this election will be a very crowded affair.

A total of 5,468 nomination forms have been snapped up from between the time the EC announced election dates on April 10 and yesterday.

Of the figure, 1,836 nomination papers sold are for parliamentary seats while the remaining 3,632 are for state seats.

That is more than eight for every parliamentary seat and seven for each state seat. A total of 222 parliamentary seats and 505 state seats are being contested.

Political parties in Sabah and Labuan took up the most forms, buying up 344 parliamentary and 726 state nomination forms respectively.

This is followed by Johor where the EC office sold 234 parliamentary and 369 state nomination papers.

Selangor EC sold 657 nomination papers to date. Each nomination paper costs RM20.

An EC official did not discount the possibility that the high number of sales showed a large number of likely contestants.

“This can be the case. But we do know that candidates and political parties buy extra forms ‘just in case’ scenario,” he said.