ALOR STAR: Kedah Barisan Nasional (BN) will wait for further instructions from party headquarters on the announcement of its 51 candidates for the 14th General Election (GE14).
Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Ahmad Bashah Md Hanipah said the date to announce BN candidates for both parliamentary and state seats would be decided after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who is also BN chairman, approved the full list of candidates from the coalition.
Bashah, who is also Kedah BN chairman said the candidates list would only be announced once BN headquarters released the nomination letters.
“We will wait for Datuk Seri Najib to approve the full list and further instruction from the headquarters because as for now the full candidates list has yet to be finalised.
“Once we receive the nomination credentials, we will then decide on the date of announcement,” he told reporters after attending a gathering with KEMAS staff at the official Menteri Besar residence here today.
Bashah said it was not unusual for the state BN chairman to announce the candidates as he had done it in the previous general election in his capacity as the state BN chief.
He was responding to Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s statement in Bagan Datuk today that the BN candidates contesting for the parliamentary and state seats at the state level in the GE14 will be announced by the respective BN state chairman.
Zahid, who is also BN deputy chairman said Najib had empowered all state BN chairmen to announce candidates for the parliamentary and state levels.
The Election Commission has set the polling day for GE14 on May 9, the nomination date on April 28, while the date for the early polling is May 5.
