GE13 on March 30?

Parliament will be dissolved on Feb 22 or 22, say sources close to the top.

ANALYSIS

The 13th general election will be held on March 30 (Saturday), according to several sources close to the Umno leadership.

However, the sources are divided into two groups in their speculation on the date of the dissolution of Parliament. One group says it will be on Feb 22 and the other says it will be on Feb 25.

A source in the group citing the earlier date said Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail had been informed of it. This group believes that nomination day will be March 16. The other group believes March 9 is nomination day.

The argument for Feb 22 as the date of Parliament’s dissolution is more plausible because it is a Friday, which means Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak will have two weekends for meetings with Barisan Nasional leaders to prepare for the polls.

The theory that nominations will be held on March 9 is not impressive in the light of widespread belief that the Election Commission (EC) is pro-BN and is expected to give the ruling coalition an edge by limiting the campaign period to 14 days from nomination day.

A short campaign period will always be to BN’s advantage primarily because it has control of the mainstream media.

While Pakatan Rakyat will depend heavily on the ceramah circuit to get its message across to voters, news on TV and radio and in BN-affiliated newspapers will be chock-full of reports from the campaign speeches of BN leaders.

Adding to the credibility of a March 30 election date is the Education Ministry’s decision to push the first term school holidays from the first to the third week of March, as disclosed to FMT by an Education Ministry official last October and confirmed in 2013 calendars distributed by government and government-linked agencies.

The ministry would not change the school holiday schedule except for a compelling reason, such as when it needs to align it with festive holidays such as Hari Raya.

Some may argue that for all the above reasons, the election is just as likely to be held on March 23 or 24 as on March 30. The trouble with this argument is that teachers normally make up the majority of temporary workers whom the EC hires for the polls. EC will need about one week to brief them on their duties.

Another reason to subscribe to the March 30 election date is that the government is in the midst of giving out the BR1M RM500 cash aid. The aid would be nearly fully distributed by the final week of March.

Why not March 31, which is a Sunday? This is highly unlikely because school reopens on the next day and EC would need a day to dismantle the polling stations in the schools.