Posters and other campaign paraphernalia will soon flood all 18 public universities, except Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), as students gear up to vote in their new representatives in next Thursday's campus polls.

Yesterday, the Higher Education Ministry announced that nomination day will be on Monday (Sept 18) while polling will take place three days later.

However, UUM's polls will be delayed as it's week-long semester break starts next week.

The campaign period will be the same as last year, which is two days. This has always been a contentious issue for the anti-establishment faction, which argues that the campaign period is too short.

Despite this, the authorities have not entertained the faction's demand for an extended period.

Campus elections in Malaysia is governed by partisan politics between the pro-establishment faction, which is believed to be sponsored by university authorities with the government's backing, and the anti-establishment factions is seen as leaning towards the opposition.

Confident of victory

Over the years, the government and campus authorities have overtly backed the pro-establishment student factions to stamp out anti-government forces in campuses nationwide.

For the first time in history , all the public universities fell under the pro-government forces in last year campus polls which was marred by allegations of intimidation and irregularities.

There were also boycotts in five universities after the authorities allegedly failed to act on the complaints filed by the anti-establishment factions.

Last week, sources from the 'pro-establishment' camp told malaysiakini that they were confident of defending their seats.

On the other hand, its rival faction has made seven demands to the Higher Education Ministry to ensure that the polls are free and fair.