KUALA LUMPUR – Barely days from announcing his candidacy, lawyer Charles Chow has decided to leave Gerak Independent (GI) and withdraw from running in the 15th general election (GE15).
In a brief press statement today, Charles said that while his objectives coincide with those put forward by the movement, differences emerged over the ways to achieve said plans.
“Our goals are aligned in that we want to put things right in our country, including enhancing the integrity of Parliament, but we differ on the ways of achieving those goals,” he said.
He added that he will no longer be running as an independent candidate for the Subang constituency, as had been previously announced during a GI press conference on February 17, four days ago.
It had also been revealed earlier that the movement is planning on fielding independent candidates to compete for seats held at the moment by Pakatan Harapan (PH).
Lawyer and activist Siti Kasim is expected to run in Batu, while KJ John takes on Petaling Jaya and Raveentheran Suntheralingam eyes Wangsa Maju.
The aforementioned four seats are currently held by PKR.
In addition, Roland Cheng will aim to wrest the Kota Kinabalu seat from DAP.
Meanwhile, former Sg Benut MP Mohd Tawfik Ismail declined to reveal his selected constituency.
Instead, he named Langkawi, Pagoh, Ampang, Simpang Renggam, Pontian, and Mersing as possible choices.
Other seats identified by the movement are Bandar Tun Razak, Gombak, Segamat, Tebrau, Batu Pahat, Sandakan and Batu Sapi, totalling 15 parliamentary constituencies.
Denying that candidates had intentionally targeted seats currently occupied by Pakatan Harapan, Siti Kasim had said that seats were chosen based on the “low performance” of MPs in the areas.
“The seats we are going for are the ones where our MPs are not performing the duties they are supposed to, such as failing to push for legislation that will make the nation better.” – The Vibes, February 21, 2022
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