Nomination day is a cool affair in Perlis
KANGAR: Despite the 14th General Election’s (GE14) heat and it being termed as the mother of all elections, the situation in Perlis remained calm during nomination day yesterday.
At 8am yesterday, there seemed to be hardly any activities at the nomination centres.
This pales in comparison to other states, where supporters of each party came by the throngs, as well as media practitioners, who arrived at nomination centres in the wee hours.
In Perlis, the number of supporters at the Arau, Padang Besar and Kangar parliament constituencies’ nomination centres was fewer than 1,000 each.
Although the atmosphere was calm, it was still exciting as the Arau parliamentary seat will see the clash of two leaders — a veteran who has contested in past eight general elections, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim, and Pas spiritual leader Hashim Jasin.
The three-cornered fight in Arau also involves PKR candidate Associate Professor Datuk Dr Abdul Rahman Daud.
Rahman may not be a familiar face, but Shahidan knows him inside out. Both of them are not only neighbours in Taman Jejawi since 1983, but were also classmates. They studied at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and were housemates.
“Friends will be friends, but we still need to contest,” that was Shahidan said when asked about his relationship with Rahman.
The state Umno liaison committee chairman expressed his confidence that Perlis BN would make a clean sweep of the seats in GE14.
“We had worked hard to face this election. Now is the calm period — visiting voters and waiting for polling day to come.”
The election also sees Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Azlan Man, the Pauh state seat former representative, swapping seats by contesting in Bintong.
Azlan believed the same method used in the 13th General Election would help him win the hearts of Bintong voters.
He shared the same view as Shahidan that BN Perlis would win big. He also believed that the coalition was capable of wresting the Kayangan and Sanglang state seat from the opposition.
GE14 will see BN contesting three parliamentary seats against Pas. PKR is contesting one seat and its ally, Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM), is contesting two parliamentary seats under the PKR logo.
Tough fights are expected in all 15 state seats, with 14 to see three-cornered fights among BN, the opposition pact and Pas.
Only the Titi Tinggi state seat will see a four-cornered fight involving independent candidate Yaacob Man. This will be his second attempt contesting the seat.
The presence of 24-year-old fresh graduate Abdul Hannaan Khairy, who will contest the Kayang state seat, is expected to create some excitement.
The Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia’s Bachelor of Electrical Engineering graduate is representing PPBM, and will face BN candidate Hasmizan Hassan and Pas candidate Md Radzi Hassan.