GE15: What’s been happening so far?

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It’s nomination day for the 15th General Election (GE15) which means campaigning will kick off soon but so many things have been happening that it’s hard to keep track of it all.

If you want to know what’s happening but it’s all just too much and you’re busy, your cats need attention, your computer went on the fritz or your kids kept spilling stuff all over the house, then you’ve come to the right place.

Here’s a roundup of some of the big stuff that happened this week ahead of today’s nomination.

So before we get into it, let’s take a look at the coalitions we have today because our landscape has changed so much from the days when we only had two: Barisan Nasional (BN) and the other side.

We still have BN, made up of Umno, MCA, MIC, and their friends which include Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS), Makkal Sakti. BN chairman is Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is also Umno president.

Then we have Pakatan Harapan (PH) made up of PKR, DAP, Amanah, UPKO and Muda. Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is the chairman of PH and also the coalition’s prime minister candidate.

Bersatu which was under PH during the last GE broke away and are now under the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition with PAS and Gerakan. The chairman of PN is Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

GTA, which many of us would recognise as a video game, is a new coalition called Gerakan Tanah Air. It was started by former Bersatu chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who left the party to form Parti Pejuang Tanah Air (Pejuang). GTA is a coalition made up of Pejuang, Parti Bumiputera Perkasa Malaysia (Putra), Barisan Jemaah Islamiah Se-Malaysia (Berjasa) dan Parti Perikatan India Muslim Nasional (Iman). At 96 going on 97, Dr Mahathir is now the pro-tem chairman of GTA, chairman of Pejuang and the coalition’s candidate for the Langkawi parliamentary seat. For the record, Dr Mahathir won Langkawi under the PH banner in GE14.

Now that you’re all caught up with the coalitions, we’ll get into what’s been happening.

1. Who’s going where?

This GE has dropped a lot more surprises compared to the last.

Umno and PKR have both made some shocking announcements when they rolled out their candidate lists over the past week. Even DAP dropped and moved some big names.

Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim did not make BN’s list for Arau so he later announced that he would still defend the seat under PN. Tan Sri Annuar Musa was also dropped from Ketereh and Tan Sri Noh Omar is not their man for Tanjong Karang. Umno also moved Khairy Jamaluddin to Sungai Buloh in a surprising, but expected, move.

PKR dropped Sivarasa Rasiah in Sungai Buloh due to health reasons and decided to field a former MIC man, R. Ramanan, to defend the seat for the party. Meanwhile, Tian Chua was dropped in Batu.

DAP did not name Charles Santiago in Klang while Lim Guan Eng will defend Bagan.

Muda will field Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman in Muar.

As for Bersatu, after he was announced as a candidate, Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed instead issued a statement saying he would not be defending Jeli.

Easily one of Twitter’s most bullied politicians, Bersatu’s Wan Ahmad Fayhsal Wan Ahmad Kamal found himself in a bit of tough spot after he was announced as candidate for Machang. With PAS and Bersatu being in the same coalition, they agreed that their candidates would use PAS’ logo in Kelantan. Wan Ahmad Fayhsal who was named as their candidate for Machang later had to apologise to PAS supporters after Netizens dug up an old tweet where he had labelled PAS supporters as stupid.

Lahad Datu incumbent Datuk Mohamaddin Ketapi had also said he would be staying out of GE15.

2. If there were 10 Tok Hims…

Remember Datuk Ibrahim Ali or Tok Him? A very colourful character who has stood for election under quite a few banners. He has been in Parliament under Umno, Semangat 46 and PAS. He also tried going at it as an independent, and now he is the president of Putra.

As reported by FMT, Ibrahim said he is GTA’s third prime ministerial candidate after Dr Mahathir and Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir.

Speaking during an event to announce GTA candidates Wednesday night, Ibrahim was quoted as saying: “Tun once said, if there were 10 Ibrahim Alis, Malaysia would be safe.”

3. Independents

Independent candidates, while they hardly win in GEs, have always added colour. Looks like GE15 will be no different as celebrity Azwan Ali announced he would stand in Gombak, against his own brother Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali.

Batu may see more than one independent with lawyer and activist Siti Kasim expressing interest as well as social media personality ‘Cleopatra’. There are also rumours that Tian Chua might stand as an independent.

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