KUALA LUMPUR: Barisan Nasional (BN) is fielding Ramli Mohd Nor, a retired senior police officer from the local Orang Asli community, as its candidate for the Cameron Highlands parliamentary by-election on Jan 26.
This was announced yesterday by BN deputy chairman Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan who said the BN was confident that Ramli, a former assistant commissioner of police, would garner the support of the voters and people in Cameron Highlands.
He also said that in selecting Ramli, BN took the approach of fielding a candidate who had the trust of the voters and not just that of the party.
“He is a BN candidate and not a candidate from any BN component party. We are confident that he can secure the support of the voters. We are also thankful to the MIC for having ‘loaned’ the Cameron Highlands seat to BN,” he said. The BN now comprises Umno, MCA and MIC.
Pakatan Harapan (PH) had announced earlier that DAP Pahang chairman M Manogaran would contest the seat, as he did in the 14th General Election (GE14) in May last year. People’s Progressive Party (MyPPP) president Tan Sri M Kayveas has also expressed the desire to contest the by-election.
Manogaran garnered 9,710 votes in GE14 and lost by 597 votes to Datuk C Sivarraajh of the BN-MIC who secured 10,307 votes and won the seat.
Others who participated in the five-cornered contest were Wan Mahadir Wan Mahmud of PAS (who garnered 3,587 votes); B Suresh Kumar of Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) (680 votes) and Mohd Tahir Kassim of Berjasa (81 votes).
The Election Court, in response to a petition filed by Manogaran, annulled the election of Sivarraajh after establishing there was vote-buying throughout the duration of the election campaign.
Nomination for the by-election is on Saturday, Jan 12, early voting on Jan 22 and polling on Jan 26. – Bernama
