Nominations 24 February, Polling 8 March & PM ‘Flip-Flop’ meet Sultan Johor today

Elections Commission which met this morning, after PM ‘Flip-Flop’ Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi sought an audience with HM Seri Paduka Baginda Yang DiPertuan Agong yesterday and obtained the approval for the dissolution of the Dewan Rakyat, after His Majesty signed the instrument, announced that Nominations Day for the XII General Elections is set on Sunday, 24 February 2008 and Polling Day on Saturday, 8 March 2008.

Bernama.com has this report:

February 14, 2008 12:00 PM

Malaysians Go To The Polls On March 8

PUTRAJAYA, Feb 14 (Bernama) — Polling for the general election will be held on March 8 and nominations on Feb 24, the Election Commission (EC) announced today.

EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman said the election would involve 222 parliamentary and 505 state seats in 12 states except for Sarawak which held its state election in 2006.

He said 10,922,139 were eligible to cast their votes based on the electoral roll gazetted on Feb 5.

Abdul Rashid made the announcement at the EC headquarters here at 11.40am. The announcement was carried live by RTM dan TV3.

– BERNAMA

There are 10.9 million eligible and registered voters.

At 3.00pm this afternoon, PM ‘Flip-Flop’ Abdullah is expected to seek an audience with HRH Sultan Iskandar Al Haj Almarhum Sultan Ismail, The Sultan of Johor at Istana Bukit Serene, Johor Bahru, Johor. In the XI General Elections, the ‘nominated’ Menteri Besar of Johor Dato’ Mohamed Khaled Nordin was asked to stand down and given back the Pasir Gudang parliamentary seat, 6 ½ hours before nominations as HRH Sultan Iskandar found him ‘undesirable’ to assume the post.

The post of MB Johor is very politically very strategic, since Johor has 27 Parlimentary constituencies and that also means that there is 26 UMNO Divisions. UMNO Johor also boast over 500,000 members, of the 3.2 million UMNO members nationwide.

Dato’ Ghani Othman, who had served Johor since April 1995, served another term till yesterday. It will be interesting who would be the ‘nominated’ MB this round. Khaled went to serve as the Minister of Entrepreneur and Co-operative Development and two controversies during his tenure was exposed in this blog last year.