DAP’S M. Manogaran is the Pakatan Harapan candidate for the Cameron Highlands by-election, announced pact chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad today.

The election court nullified the 14th general election result for the parliamentary seat after finding evidence of corruption to induce constituents to vote for Barisan Nasional candidate C. Sivarraajh, who won the five-cornered fight.

The Election Commission has declared that the MIC vice-president is ineligible to contest the January 26 by-election as he is implicated in the corruption.

Sivarraajh is also barred from registering as a voter or election candidate for five years, beginning December 13 last year.

In GE14, he won Cameron Highlands with 10,307 votes, getting a slim 597-vote majority over Manogaran. The PAS candidate got 3,587 votes, Parti Sosialis Malaysia (680) and Berjasa (81).

The election petition that led to the annulment of BN’s victory was filed by Manogaran.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir announced Manogaran’s candidacy after chairing a meeting of the PH presidential council at Yayasan Al-Bukhary in Kuala Lumpur.

“Our candidate is M. Manogaran. We will win this by-election,” he told reporters.

Manogaran, who was present, did not speak to the press.

A lawyer by profession, Manogaran contested the Cameron Highlands seat on a PKR ticket in 2013. Prior to that, he was Teluk Intan MP.

Last month, he told The Malaysian Insight that he would most likely be picked as PH’s candidate for the Cameron Highlands by-election as he had not stopped working for DAP in the constituency even after losing to Sivarraajh.

He said the Cameron Highlands DAP branch had activated its election machinery in preparation for the polls.

Nomination has been set for January 12. – January 4, 2019.