Universiti Malaya's campus elections this year is a whole new ball game that's expected to be highly competitive.

Instead of the usual "two party" elections, this year, five different groups, three of which have formed an alliance, are vying for 32 faculty seats and eight campus seats.

The five groups are (1) Penggerak Mahasiswa; (2) Pro-Mahasiswa Universiti Malaya (PMUM) which includes UM Muslim Students Association (PMIUM) and UM Assocation of New Youth (Umany); (3) Neo-siswa; (4) Demokrat and (5) Harmoni.

PMUM, Umany and PMIUM have formed an electoral pact, and have fielded 15, nine and six candidates respectively.

Pro-establishment group Penggerak Mahasiswa has fielded 38 candidates, while Neo-Siswa has fielded four.

Two of Umany's candidates, its president Ho Chi Yang (photo) and secretary Lau Li Yang, have been disqualified from contesting,

"I received a call from the staff, they informed me that the Student Affairs Department received my nomination letter, but the vice-chancellor rejected my application and disqualified me," Ho said at a press conference yesterday.

He claimed he had been disqualified over an unauthorised press conference held on Dec 14 last year, which claimed UM was planning to impose a 5GB cap per student for the campus' free Internet usage, a charge the university denies.

Lau was disqualified after failing to complete his forms in time. He said he had wanted to switch from a campus seat to a faculty seat, but the process was too complicated.

The university refused to accept his application, which he claimed was filed only five minutes late.

Besides having two candidates out of the race, Umany also claimed that the UM's electoral system is against them.

The group's policy leader, Marcus Lee Min Lun, said faculty heads were clearly biased by backing Penggerak Mahasiswa.

"This means that the election is no longer a fair and equitable. This is a very serious problem," Lee said.

Ho also voiced concerns about the university's e-voting system, which he said was not transparent and susceptible to tampering by hackers.

Last year, PMUM boycotted the student council elections, claiming the council had little powers.

The UM campus election will be held tomorrow. Voting is from 9am until 7pm.