Rout for Muda in state elections with nearly RM100,000 lost in deposits
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 15 — All 19 of Malaysian United Democratic Alliance's (Muda) candidates fielded in the recent state elections have lost their deposits after having failed to gain one-eighth or 12.5 per cent of the votes in their respective constituencies.
As the deposit for each candidate stands at RM5,000, the total financial loss to the youth-led party is RM95,000.
Muda originally announced a lineup of 20 candidates, but its candidate for the Negeri Sembilan state assembly seat in Repah Muhammad Noriswan Ishak reportedly withdrew from contesting the day before nomination day, citing personal reasons.
According to the Election Commission (EC), the Muda candidate who won the least votes was Vikneswary Harikrishnan with 253 votes.
He lost in Perai, Penang against DAP’s Datuk Seri Sundarajoo Somu, who won with 10,680 votes.
Party information chief Luqman Long was the next candidate with the least votes as he only received 372 in Bandar, Terengganu.
The incumbent there, PAS’ Ahmad Shah Muhamed, won with 8,438 votes.
On the other end of the spectrum, Subang Jaya hopeful Zayd Shaukat won the most votes of any Muda candidate with 4,749 votes.
However, he failed to defeat the incumbent, DAP’s Michelle Ng Mei Sze, who won with 60,364 votes.
Zayd’s high number of votes relative to the rest of his party could be attributed to Subang Jaya's large population as there are 111,970 registered voters there.
Prior to the polling day, Muda’s candidate for Bukit Gasing VKK Raja came under fire on social media for body shaming his competitor, incumbent Rajiv Rishyakaran.
This caused party deputy president and Puteri Wangsa state assemblyman Amira Aisya to issue a public apology on her Twitter account, saying that a disciplinary report had been made against Raja.
But when it came down to the votes later, Raja gained only 1,390 votes against Rajiv’s 28,227.
Overall, almost all of Muda’s candidates who contested in Selangor were able to exceed 1,000 votes except for its Taman Templer hopeful Aida Rahman who won 765 votes.
Of those fielded outside of the Klang Valley, Lee Kim Noor, who ran in Batu Uban, Penang received the most votes: 803 against the incumbent there, PKR’s Kumaresan Aramugam.
Additionally, Muda also received the ire of Pakatan Harapan (PH) where in a three-cornered fight for Sungai Kandis, Perikatan Nasional candidate Wan Dzahanurin Ahmad managed to wrest the seat from PH after garnering 28,926 votes, merely 167 more than his rival, Zawali Mughni.
This comes as Muda candidate Afriena Shaqira won 1,341 votes there which was more than enough to win PH the seat that the coalition has held since 2008.
After the votes were counted, party president Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman said that the party takes full responsibility for the election outcome.
The Muar MP called Muda’s participation in the state elections a necessary step to build a platform featuring new leaders to demonstrate their ideals to the Malaysian public.
In June, he announced that the party will be contesting the upcoming state elections under its own logo, saying that the party will use its own strength to bring about a new political narrative to Malaysia.
