13-day race

Malaysians will go to the polls on March 8.
The Election Commission announced that nomination day for the 222 parliamentary and 505 state seats would be Feb 24.
A total of 10,922,139 registered voters on the 2007 master electoral roll gazetted on Feb 5 would be eligible to vote. Of this, 221,085 are postal voters.
Commission chairman Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman said the number of days for campaigning would be 13 days, inclusive of nomination day.
This will be the longest official campaign period in 26 years.
Barisan deputy chairman Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the period would give all political parties ample opportunity to campaign effectively.
DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang thanked the Election Commission for the longer period.
The longest campaign period was 1969 elections, stretched over 47 days, while in 1974 it was 16. In 1978, it was 15 days. In 1982, it was reduced to 15 days and later in 1986, 1990, 1995,it was cut down to 10 days. In 1999 it is only 9 days and 2004, campaigning period was only 8 days.