PASIR GUDANG, Oct 15 — UMNO vice-president Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin will leave it to the party leadership to decide on candidates to contest in the 15th General Election (GE15).
The former Pasir Gudang MP, who did not deny that his name was listed among five candidates for the Pasir Gudang parliamentary seat, said the process of determining the candidates is still ongoing.
“At the moment, Pasir Gudang UMNO division has put forward my name and several others… so I leave it to the party leadership to make a decision.
“(However), UMNO is in the process of determining the candidates but it is not finalised,” he told reporters after officiating the Pasir Gudang UMNO Division meeting today.
Apart from Pasir Gudang parliamentary seat, the media also reported that the former Johor Menteri Besar was also named among the candidates for the Kota Tinggi parliamentary seat.
In GE14, Mohamed Khaled, then the Johor Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman and state UMNO Liaison Committee chairman, lost the Pasir Gudang parliament seat in a four-corner fight to Pakatan Harapan, Hassan Abdul Karim (PKR), who won with a majority of 24,726 votes.
Mohamed Khaled, the former Higher Education Minister, also failed to defend his Permas state seat, which was won by Datuk Seri Che Zakaria Mohd Salleh (PKR) who garnered a majority of 8,746 votes
