PETALING JAYA: Malaysia heads to the ballot box on Nov 19 to elect a new line-up of lawmakers in Parliament and three states.
The 15th General Election (GE15) will see a record 21.17 million eligible voters.
They include 1.4 million Malaysians aged between 18 and 20 taking part in their first general election after the voting age was lowered from 21.
A total of 39 parties are contesting the elections, up from 38 in 2018’s GE14.
ALSO READ: How Malaysia’s political balance shifted since 2018
GE15 will see six coalitions fighting for voter support.
They are Barisan Nasional, Perikatan Nasional, Gabungan Parti Sarawak, Gabungan Rakyat Sarawak, Pakatan Harapan and Gerakan Tanah Air.
Other than the 222 seats in the Dewan Rakyat, voters will also be electing members of the state legislative assemblies of Perlis, Perak and Pahang.
The country’s 10 remaining states will not be holding their state polls in tandem with GE15.
Sabah held its state election in 2020, followed by Melaka and Sarawak in 2021 as well as Johor which had its election in March this year. Six other states have yet to dissolve their assemblies.
Here’s what the Dewan Rakyat looks like before it was dissolved on Oct 10:
Crowded field
A total of 945 candidates filed their papers to run in GE15, of which 108 or 11% are independents.
ALSO READ: GE15: Full list of candidates for Parliament seats
Here’s a breakdown of the parties and coalitions taking part and how many seats they are contesting.
The major players
Of all the parties, Umno, PKR and Pejuang are contesting in the most number of parliament seats:
Keenly contested
Only nine of the 222 parliamentary seats will see straight fights. The rest involve multi-cornered fights with up to 10 candidates in one of them:
