JOHOR BARU, Feb 26 — The hotly-contested Larkin state constituency will see a six-cornered contest involving first-time candidates from the Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda), Barisan Nasional (BN), Perikatan Nasional (PN), PKR, Parti Pejuang Tanah Air (Pejuang), including an independent candidate, vying for the city centre seat.
Independent hopeful Norramadan Buan will go against candidates from several established and new political parties.
The 46-year-old religious preacher will be joined by Muda’s Rasid Abu Bakar, BN’s Mohd Hairi Mad Shah, PN’s Zulkifli Bujang, PKR’s Dr Zamil Najwah Arbain and Pejuang’s Mohamad Riadz Mohamad Hashim.
From the six, Mohd Hairi is known as the Johor Umno Youth chief, while Zulkifli is a former journalist and also press secretary to Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin.
They will be joined by Pejuang’s Mohamad Riadz and Muda’s Muda’s state information chief Rasid.
PKR’s Dr Zamil is the only candidate out of the six who has contested before under PKR in the previous 14th general election (GE14) in Tanjung Surat in 2018.
Larkin state constituency’s managing officer Datuk Abdul Rahman Salleh accepted all six nomination papers for the candidates at 10am.
He said all six of the candidates’ nomination papers were in order and none were rejected.
The six ballot papers going by order are: Pejuang, Muda, PKR, PN, Independent and BN.
The Larkin state seat is mainly an urban seat located in the Johor Baru city.
In GE14, Larkin was won by Mohd Izhar Ahmad from Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) under Pakatan Harapan (PH) with a majority of 8,590 votes. He defeated BN’s Datuk Yahya Ja’far and Zakiah Tukirin from PAS in a three-way contest.
Earlier, stringent standard operating procedures (SOPs) has been imposed at all 56 nomination centres statewide.
Only the candidates, their proposers and seconders were allowed into the centres. Filing of nominations papers at all 56 centres, statewide started at 9am.
The Election Commission (EC) has set March 12 as the polling date for the Johor state election and early voting will be on March 8.
Johor has 56 state constituencies, with more than 2.59 million voters who are eligible to cast their ballot in this state election. The EC is targeting a 70 per cent voter turnout.
