Campus elections kick off... in a colourful way
Four major universities started their campus elections today with nominations for the candidates.
Four major universities started their campus elections today with nominations for the candidates.
The atmosphere hit fever pitch at Universiti Malaya (UM), with waves of orange-clad supporters and black-clad supporters chanting slogans at each other.
Orange is the traditional colour for the 'pro-students' group (also known as pro-M) whereas black represents the ‘pro-aspiration’ group.
This morning, 200 pro-M students, many of them wearing orange, marched to the nomination centre. A similar number of pro-aspiration students gathered at the science faculty near the nomination centre.
Chanting 'destroy bribery' and armed with placards, the pro-M supporters alleged that the pro-aspiration group had received financial assistance amounting to RM5,000 from campus authorities for their campaign.
Pro-aspiration groups shot back with the slogan 'Pro-M Alat PKR' (pro-M is an opposition tool’).
28 pro-M candidates and 34 pro-aspiration candidates are contending for a total of 41 seats in this year's UM elections.
Tough fight at other campuses 
Three other universities holding their nomination day today are Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM).
The situation in UKM was equally tense with approximately 200 pro-M supporters and 100 pro-aspiration supporters at loggerheads.
Displaying two toy horses painted with the word 'Aspirasi' (aspiration), Pro-M supporters ridiculed their rival for siding with campus authorities.
In UKM, pro-M candidates won one seat out of the total 35 without contest.
There was also a strong fight between the two groups at UTM with a total of 51 seats up for grabs in its Skudai and Kuala Lumpur campuses.
Forty-three pro-M candidates contested against 51 pro-aspiration candidates. Eight from the pro-aspiration team have won uncontested.
Only a 100 pro-M students gathered at UTM, where the atmosphere was notably colourless in comparison to other campuses. Contrastingly, pro-aspiration candidates went confidently to the polls without mobilising any of its supporters.
In a clear victory for pro-aspiration camp at USM, 24 of their candidates won 33 of the seats without contest. The pro-M team only fielded three candidates. Also running for the elections were six independent candidates.
The nomination times for UM, UKM and USM are from 9am to noon, and 9am to 1pm for UTM.
