Tanjung Piai parliamentary poll on Nov 16, nomination on Nov 2
JOHOR BARU, Oct 1 — The Tanjung Piai parliamentary by-election will be held on November 16, Election Commission (EC) chairman Datuk Azhar Azizan Harun announced today.
Nomination of candidates is set for November 2 while early polls will be on November 12, he added.
The Tanjung Piai parliamentary seat fell vacant following the September 21 sudden death of its incumbent Datuk Dr Md Farid Md Rafik, 42, from a heart attack.
Dr Farid was also the deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Department.
Azhar said the 14-day campaign period begins after the nomination day until 11.59pm on November 15.
“The dates for postal votes, for both local and overseas voter ballot applications, will open on October 1 and end on October 31,” he said at a media conference after chairing a meeting to discuss key dates for the Tanjung Piai by-election at the commission’s headquarters in Putrajaya here today.
Azhar said the EC was officially informed on the vacancy of the parliamentary seat by the Dewan Rakyat Speaker on September 23.
According to law, he said a by-election must be held within 60 days of the vacancy.
“The estimated cost of running this by-election is RM2.67 million,” said Azhar.
Tanjung Piai has a total of 52,986 voters, of which 280 are early voters.
Azhar said the EC expects a voter turnout of about 70 per cent on polling day.
The Tanjung Piai by-election is the ninth after the 14th general election (GE14) held in May last year.
It is also the 14th by-election in Johor’s history since independence, the last being the Tenang state by-election in 2011.
Pakatan Harapan’s Dr Farid had won the seat in the GE14 after he defeated Barisan Nasional’s (BN) Wee Jeck Seng by only 524 votes in a three-cornered contest. Nordin Othman from PAS secured 2,962 votes.
The Tanjung Piai constituency is a mixed seat with 57 per cent Malays, 42 per cent Chinese and 1 per cent Indian.
The seat has been traditionally been contested by MCA since 2004.
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