Friday, February 15, 2008

Malaysia's 12th general election


Malaysians will go to the polls on March 8.
The Election Commission announced that nomination day for the 222 parliamentary and 505 state seats would be Feb 24.
A total of 10,922,139 registered voters on the 2007 master electoral roll gazetted on Feb 5 would be eligible to vote. Of this, 221,085 are postal voters.


Commission chairman Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman said the number of days for campaigning would be 13 days, inclusive of nomination day. The dissolution of Parliament took place 15 months before the expiry of its five-year term to pave the way for the 12th general election.


Abdul Rashid said 30 political parties registered with the commission would be contesting.
Stating that March 8 would be the start of a one-week school holiday, Abdul Rashid advised all registered voters to exercise their fundamental rights to cast their votes between 8am and 5pm.


He said the EC would be spending about RM200mil on the elections. There will 149,000 official appointees, mostly schoolteachers, and 50,000 casual workers.
Abdul Rashid said the commission had no power to endorse observers but that it was supportive of efforts by election watchdog group Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections (Mafrel) to continue monitoring the conduct of the general election



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