JOHOR BARU: Perikatan Nasional will finalise and announce its list of candidates for the Johor polls by next week.

       Its Johor election director Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin said the seat allocation for Perikatan’s component parties were also available but would only be finalised in a meeting Friday (Feb 11) night.

       "We will be contesting in all 56 seats in the state so there will be 56 candidates - the list will be announced after we hear back from the relevant agencies such as the police and Inland Revenue Board about things like their criminal record.

       "There are bound to be some last minute changes where this person wants to go (contest) there and that person wants here.

       "All that will be finalised tonight," he told reporters after launching and handing out Prihatin aid boxes to the needy at Bandar Baru Uda here on Friday (Feb 11).

       He added that there were two to three candidates proposed for each seat and it would be decided by Perikatan’s top leadership.

       When asked whether PAS was unhappy with the seat allocations, the Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia secretary-general brushed off the rumours, saying: "Rumours are spread by those who only know how to spread rumours."

       Earlier at the event attended by hundreds of supporters, he said Perikatan should stop questioning who or why the Johor State Assembly was dissolved as they should start looking at ways to win the state polls.

       "What we have to focus on now is how to get power back to Perikatan," he said.

       Johor will go to the polls on March 12, with the nomination day set on Feb 26 and early voting on March 8.