FORMER Foreign Minister Anifah Aman’s new party, Parti Cinta Sabah, will contest all 73 seats in the Sabah election, said the Election Commission (EC).

Despite being the newest party, it tops the list of seats any single party is contesting in.

“Next on the list is state government party, Warisan Sabah, who will contest 53 seats followed by United Sabah National Organisation (USNO) (47), Liberal Democratic Party LDP (46), and Barisan Nasional (BN) (41),” said newly appointed EC chairman Abdul Ghani Salleh in Kota Kinabalu today.

Abdul Ghani was updating the media on the number of nominations filed for the 16th Sabah state election which began today.

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s Perikatan Nasional (PN) will contest 29 seats, while Gagasan (Sabah) and Parti Perpaduan Rakyat Sabah (PPRS) have candidates in 28 and 23 constituencies respectively.

Other parties are Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) (22), United Progressive Kinabalu Organisation (Upko) (12), Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) (7), Parti Harapan Rakyat Sabah (PHRS) (5), Anak Negeri (2), with Amanah, Parti Kebangsaan Sabah (PKS) and Pertubuhan Perpaduan Rakyat Kebangsaan Sabah (Pertubuhan) having one candidate each.

There were 56 independent candidates, making the total number of candidates at 447 for the Sabah election.

According to EC, the biggest contest will be in the Bangkoka seat in Kudat, which has 11 candidates. This is followed by Inanam (Sepanggar) which has 10 candidates.

Apart from that, there are three nine-cornered fights, six eight-cornered battles, and 13 seven-cornered contests. Six-cornered fights, however, are the most popular as they are found in 26 seats.

There are no straight battles in this state election as only three seats have three-cornered fights.

EC said that the candidates were predominately male as 404 were men and only 43 were women. 

The youngest candidate is 22 years old in Tandek (Kota Marudu parliament constituency) and the oldest candidate is 75 years old at Bugaya (Semporna). – September 12, 2020.