Najib said Sulaiman, who was the chief minister before the state polls were called, was BN’s sole candidate for the position, quashing talk that Melaka Umno chief Ab Rauf Yusoh was being considered for the post.

“No, no, no. We have only decided on Sulaiman (as chief minister),” he said in a Berita Harian report.

The former prime minister had accompanied Rauf to the Tanjung Bidara nomination centre earlier today.

Rauf, the state assembly speaker, will be facing off with Perikatan Nasional’s Mas Ermieyati Samsudin, who is also the deputy law minister, and Pakatan Harapan’s Zainal Hassan.

The seat was won by BN’s Md Rawi Mahmud in GE14, who garnered 4,865 votes to obtain a 2,864 majority.

Sulaiman had previously been branded a “puppet” by former Melaka chief minister Idris Haron, after serving as an executive councillor in the previous BN-led administration before retracting support for the state government.

Idris also claimed that Rauf had ambitions to helm the chief minister’s post, repeatedly saying there were “two lions on one mountain” in the then state government.