KUCHING: Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) chief whip Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof will defend his Petra Jaya parliamentary seat in a three-cornered battle in the 15th General Election (GE15).
Fadillah, who is contesting under the GPS ticket, will be up against Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) Sopian Julaihi and Parti Sedar Rakyat Sarawak’s (SEDAR) Datuk Othman Abdillah.
The official announcement of the nomination for the constituency was made by Election Commission (EC) returning officer Mohamed Khaidir Abang at the nominations centre at Dewan Al-Muneerah, SMK Petra Jaya here today (Nov 5).
He confirmed that all nomination documents filed by the three candidates were accepted.
Sopian was the first to file his nomination document at 9.01am followed by Fadillah (9.05am) and Othman (9.09am).
Mohamed Khaidir announced the order of candidates as GPS Fadillah, PH Sofian and SEDAR Othman.
Earlier, Fadillah clad in light brown Baju Melayu, arrived at the nomination centre at 8.51am accompanied by his proposer Fazzrudin Abdul Rahman and seconder Hanifah Saed.
Othman, clad in a Batik shirt and suit, arrived about the same time as Fadillah.
He was accompanied by his proposer Abang Halit Abang Malik together with seconder Jaini Kipli.
Meanwhile, Sopian dressed in red Baju Melayu arrived at the nomination centre around 8.45am together with his proposer Iswardy Morni and seconder Edris Hirmi.
This GE15 will see Fadillah, 60, defending his seat for the fifth term, while Sopian and Othman are both contesting for the first time in the GE.
In the previous GE14, Fadillah garnered 28,306 votes against Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Nor Irwan Ahmat Nor (13,298 votes) and Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) Hamdan Sani (1,350 votes).
