The Electoral Affairs Commission for the Legislative Assembly Election has confirmed a total of 14 teams, with an aggregate of 128 candidates, will contest the direct election for the Legislative Assembly. Five teams, with a total of 12 candidates, will contest the indirect election.

The Electoral Affairs Commission today published the definitive version of the full list of accepted candidate teams, following a ruling issued by the Court of Final Appeal on 31 July.

Following the publication of the list of accepted teams, and according to the Legislative Assembly Election Law, the Electoral Affairs Commission is to conduct on Tuesday (3 August) drawing of lots to determine the order in which candidate teams will appear on the ballot papers.

According to the schedule for electoral arrangements, the official campaigning period runs from 28 August to 10 September inclusive. The accepted candidate teams will not be allowed to conduct promotional activities until the beginning of the official campaign period.

In addition, the Electoral Affairs Commission today issued its second election guideline to regulate campaign promotional activities.

The guideline, titled “2/CAEAL/2021”, requires the removal or deletion of any message or information – displayed in either any public area or online platform – that aims to draw public attention to a particular candidate or candidates, and is targeted at encouraging voters, in an explicit or implicit way, to vote or not vote for a particular candidate or candidates.

The guideline stipulates that the trustees and candidates for each ticket, as well as trustees of nomination committees, must remove or delete any promotional material on or before midnight on 2 August 2021. Any violation of the guideline might amount to a criminal offence.