SHAH ALAM (Nov 5): The Sungai Buloh parliamentary seat will see a seven-cornered fight in the 15th general election (GE15).

Caretaker Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar, representing Barisan Nasional (BN), will be up against Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) Datuk R Ramanan, Perikatan Nasional’s (PN) Mohd Ghazali Md Hamid, GTA-Pejuang candidate Mohd Akmal Mohd Yusoff, Parti Rakyat Malaysia candidate Ahmad Jufliz Faiza and independent candidates Syed Abdul Razak Syed Long Alsagoff and Nurhaslinda Basri.

Khairy, also known as KJ, said it would be a difficult task for him to wrest the seat considering that it had been won by PH in the last three general elections.

“It will be a very tough fight for me but I accept the challenge, I hope voters would give me the chance.

“This is probably the toughest fight in my political career,” he told reporters after filing his nomination papers at the Petaling District and Land Office in Shah Alam on Saturday (Nov 5).

Khairy had contested and won the Rembau parliamentary seat in Negeri Sembilan in the last three general elections.

“Sungai Buloh is a challenging seat for me as we (BN) lost by 26,000 votes in the last general election,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ramanan is confident that PH would retain the seat on Nov 19 although he is a new candidate and yet to be popular on social media.   

“This is our stronghold seat and we are confident of winning it again in GE15. I agree with Khairy who said he is an underdog on the ground. But on social media I am the underdog,” he said.

Ramanan said what mattered the most is PH’s prime minister candidate.

“We have to ensure the success of Sungai Buloh to contribute to the (minimum) 112 seats needed to form a government and for Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to be the prime minister,” he added.

Incumbent Sungai Buloh member of parliament R Sivarasa was present at the nomination centre to show his support for Ramanan.

Sivarasa said PH still commands strong support in the constituency despite BN’s move to field Khairy there.

“We have built a big base of support over the last three general elections and won with a comfortable majority [in 2018]. So the support is there,” he told reporters.

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