There will be a contest for Pahang's Batu Talam state by-election on Jan 28 despite an opposition boycott.

Two candidates - one of whom is an independent - have filed their papers to contest in the by-election at the close of nomination period at 10am today.

At the end of objection period, Returning Officer Abdul Kadir Awang Bakar announced that the by-election will see a one-to-one fight between Barisan Nasional's Abdul Aziz Kiram, 47, and Independent candidate Ng Chee Pang, a 21-year-old trader. Ng turns 22 next Monday.

Abdul Kadir said no objections were upheld. However it is learned that Ng's representatives had objected to the employment status of the BN candidate as stated in his nomination form but that objection was rejected.

Both the candidates filed the nominations at the Raub district office in contrasting styles.

Raub Umno division secretary Abdul Aziz was accompanied by thousands of supporters and flanked by the Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and several other top leaders.

Ng, on the other hand, had just handful of supporters flanking him. He was the first to hand in his nomination paper at 9am.

Ng's father Ng Kwi Ling is Pahang DAP treasurer, and had contested for the Raub parliamentary seat twice - in 1995 and 1999.

Abdul Aziz filed in his nomination at 9.30am. His entourage walked in a short procession through Raub town to the nomination centre at the district office.

PAS and Parti Keadilan Rakyat had said they were boycotting the by-election in protest against the discrepancies in the election laws which the Election Commission had failed to rectify. The DAP had said it would stay away from the polls.

Asking for a chance

Later, looking shy and nervous during a press conference, Ng asked the Batu Talam voters to give him a chance.

"I hope not to lose my deposit," he said, adding that he was not representing any opposition parties in the by-election. He however admitted that he was strongly influenced by his father's political ideologies.

SPM certificate holder Ng spoke very little at the press conference and relied heavily on his father to respond to questions from the media.

The senior Ng said that decision to field his son as an Independent candidate was only made late last night.

"He now bears the responsibility to provide a democracy platform for all the people of Batu Talam," said the DAP politician.

He also added that DAP was not behind his son's candidacy.

DAP leader Ronnie Liu, who was in Batu Talam as a representative of election watchdog The Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih), also denied that the party was backing the Independent candidate.

He said that Ng was not even a party member.

The rural seat under the Raub parliamentary constituency fell vacant following the death of the incumbent BN assemblyman Tengku Paris Tengku Razlan, 66, on Dec 27 due to cancer.

Batu Talam has 10,525 registered voters, of whom 79 percent are Malays, 11 percent Chinese and 10 percent made up of Indian and Orang Asli voters.