Left out of the list of "calons" after the party leaders decided to "bring in new blood" and replace you with some young gun? Can't wait for your turn in the party hierarchy? Or are you simply unimpressed with either Barisan Nasional or Barisan Rakyat?

Well, Yang Berhormat wannabes of all creeds and colours, ideologies, with or without experience and hair styles can now be independent without being alone with the United National Independent Front (Unif).

The art of turning unrealistic ambitions into possibilities turned another corner today as independent candidate extraordinaire Billi Lim unveiled Unif at Kelana Jaya.

Unif and Citizen Think Tank (CTT) have come out with an alternative and a common forum for those aspiring to be independent candidates.

At a press conference this afternoon, Lim, who wrote a series of motivational books entitled "Dare to Fail", said that independent candidates will be the next big thing.

unif pc 250308 billi lim "But some of them may not have the proper knowledge or machinery to run a campaign," said Lim. "This is where we come in. With Unif, like-minded people can come together to learn and exchange ideas."

Lacking a common ideology, hierarchy, leadership or anything resembling an institutionalised political party, Unif promises to take in almost anybody.

"The reason why we don't want any proper structure is to avoid what is happening in Perlis and Terengganu now. We don't want to see tussles for positions be they exco or Menteri Besar," said Lim.

Candidates to be vetted

He also added that while the group would not reject people based on the race or religion, these candidates will nevertheless be vetted.

"We don't want candidates from the main political parties to come in and mess around nor do we want candidates with questionable motives."

This is where Citizen Think Tank comes in, he added.

unif pc 250308 andrew pang "CTT will help the vetting process with a series of psychological and behavioural tests," said CTT representative Andrew Pang.

Although there are no membership fees, some basic fees are expected to cover the cost of lectures, said Pang.

Besides assisting potential candidates, Unif also hopes to build future leaders and provide key knowledge and strategies. Their current objective is to field 50 independents in the next election.

Other than Billi Lim, the other convenors are CTT's Andrew Pang and Lembah Pantai independent candidate N Periasamy.

During the last elections Lim lost in a three-cornered fight to PKR's Loh Gwo-Burne (30,298 votes) and MCA's Lee Hwa Beng (25,267). Lim garnered 1,895 votes.

Periasamy suffered a similar defeat when he only picked up 489 votes in Lembah Pantai. PKR's Nurul Izzah Anwar won the seat with 21,728 votes while Umno's Shahrizat Abdul Jalil collected 18,833 votes.