All 158 GTA-Pejuang Candidates Collectively Lose RM1.3 Million Of Deposit Money In #GE15
To secure the deposit in a general election, candidates must attain at least one-eighth (or 12.5%) of the total votes.
By Yap Wan Xiang — 20 Nov 2022, 05:57 PM
All the candidates who contested under Pejuang have lost their deposits in the 15th General Election (GE15), causing the party with 158 parliamentary and state candidates to lose RM1,365,000 in total
Malaysiakini made the revelation of the crushing defeat of the Gerakan Tanah Air (GTA) coalition, which is yet to be officially registered by the Registrar of Societies (ROS), after none of its candidates managed to attain 12.5% of votes in each of the contested seats.
To secure their seat deposits back in a general election, they must attain at least one-eighth of the total votes.
The deposit for a parliamentary seat is RM10,000, while a state seat is RM5,000.
Pejuang contested 115 parliamentary seats and 43 state seats yesterday, 19 November, excluding the Padang Serai parliamentary seat and the Tioman state seat as the elections in the two areas have been postponed.
Based on SAYS' calculation, Pejuang candidates lost a total of RM1,150,000 in deposits for the contested parliamentary seats, and RM215,000 for the contested state seats.
Of all the seats contested, only 26 candidates attained more than 1,000 votes. In other words, 84% of its candidates failed to garner votes surpassing four digits.
The lowest number of votes that SAYS sighted was its Labuan candidate, Ramle, who received only 90 votes, according to the numbers published on EC's official website.
Malaysiakini reported that Pejuang had also lost all its deposits during the Johor state election in March when they fielded 42 candidates.
In yesterday's fight, GTA chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad merely gathered 4,566 votes (9.6%) out of the total 47,480 votes in the Langkawi parliamentary seat.
The 97-year-old former premier was 1,369 votes short of retrieving his deposit.
In July, deputy president Datuk Marzuki Yahya said the party was eyeing to win GE15.
By September, however, the party receded and said it would become the kingmaker.
Without winning any seats yesterday, Mahathir and his party virtually have no say in who should become the next Prime Minister now.
