Anti-estabishment student faction called Pro-Mahasiswa (or Pro-Student) and independent candidates have made big gains in the Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIA) campus election.

According to official results today, pro-Mahasiswa candidates won 17 faculty seats, while independent candidates won three seats.

The total number of seats won by pro-Mahasiswa equals their haul in last session's election.

The independent candidates also made a clean sweep of the five international seats that were on offer.

However, elections for two seats in the faculty of allied health sciences have been postponed to Jan 29, after pro-Mahasiswa objected to a candidate who was competing for a seat.

Pro-Aspirasi and the National Union of Malaysian Muslims Students (PKPIM) each won a seat.

After nominations last Monday, pro-Mahasiswa won two seats without competition in the engineering faculty in UIA's Gombak campus and the nursing faculty in its Kuantan campus, while an independent candidate won a seat without competing in the IT faculty.

Pro-Aspirasi still on top

In yesterday's election at the Gombak campus, pro-Mahasiswa won nine seats while, pro-Aspirasi, the independent candidate and PKPIM each won one seat.

On the other hand, in the Kuantan campus, pro-Mahasiswa conquered eight seats. The independent candidate won two seats, while elections for two other seats were postponed.

UIA is the last public university to hold campus elections, after Universiti Malaya, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Mara, Universiti Putra Malaysia and Universiti Utara Malaysia.

As expected, in all these universities, except for UM, pro-government faction, pro-Aspirasi conquered the majority of seats.

The pro-Mahasiswa faction scored a tissue-thin 21-20 majority in a surprise victory after suffering defeat for five years in a row.