“I am confident that it will be held this year because there are many indicators pointing in that direction, I think it is most suitable for us to hold it this year,” he said after closing the Wanita BN convention here today.

He said BN had begun election preparations at all levels. BN had plans to compete with the spirit of the underdog to ensure that the party machinery would do their best to gain voter support.

“We must strive for more than what we had achieved before. We will work to be dominant this time, even though we are the underdog being attacked from various sides,” he said.

He said BN must be quick to fight the opposition accusations, especially on social media, on issues such as the littoral combat ship programme, to stop them from ‘killing’ BN.

He said the BN machinery cannot wait until the campaign period starts to answer the issue.