KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 14 — Gerakan today submitted their list of potential candidates for the 14th General Election (GE14) to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak ,who is also Barisan Nasional (BN) Chairman. The list features more than 60 per cent of new faces.
Gerakan president Datuk Seri Mah Siew Keong said the candidates comprise of all races who had been working in the previous 45 seats contested by the party in the last general election.
Asked whether the party would retain all the seats contested previously, Mah said it was up to the BN chairman to decide, but the party was confident that it could do better in all those seats.
“We have given the list to the prime minister, there is no final decision yet,” he told a press conference after a closed-door meeting with the prime minister at Gerakan’s headquarters here today.
Elaborating on Gerakan’s election preparations, Mah said the party, however, expected that there would be changes in four to five of the seats it contested previously.
“It is actually for a win-win situation. For example if MCA is confident of doing better than us in some of our seats. So we can switchj seats. But not necessarily with MCA, it can be with any of the component parties (in the Barisan Nasional coalition),” he said, that he could not divulge details as it was still under discussion.
On Penang, Mah said that he was confident that the party could do much better given numerous issues arising under the DAP-led government, such as the Undersea Tunnel project.
“We are convinced that Penang people will elect a few Gerakan representatives for check and balance in the State Assembly .
“Plus, in Penang, during the last election, DAP won all the seats they contested, they never lost so they are a bit arrogant now, so we are confident we will do much better,” he said.
On the meeting with Najib today, Mah said the short meeting went very well whereby the prime minister had advised the Gerakan leadership to always be on standby mode and make all out preparations for the election.
Prior to the one hour and 15 minutes meeting where Najib was briefed on the Gerakan’s preparations for the GE14, Mah said Najib was also given a tour of Gerakan’s election war room. — Bernama
