Sungai Kandis by-election on August 4, says EC

Muzliza Mustafa Muzliza Mustafa Updated 5 years ago · Published on 9 Jul 2018 12:53PM · 3 Comments

THE Election Commission today set August 4 for the by-election for the Sungai Kandis state seat, which was left vacant after its incumbent assemblyman, Mat Shuhaimi Shafiei, died of lymphoma cancer last Monday.

The state seat comes under the Kota Raja parliamentary seat.

The announcement was made by EC deputy chairman Othman Mahmood at a press conference at its headquarters today, after a special meeting to discuss the matter that lasted almost three hours.

Othman said the EC had also set July 21 as the nomination date and 14 days for the campaigning period.

He said a few adjustments would be made to the by-election operations, such as increased channels.

“We have decided to increase the number of channels to 109, instead of 88 as in the 14th general election, and will set polling time to be from 8am to 5.30pm,” he said.

The Sungai Kandis by-election will cost about RM1.4 million to run.

Pakatan Harapan chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad said in a press conference held after the presidential council meeting in Putrajaya on Friday that the coalition’s candidate for Sungai Kandis will come from PKR.

He said the PH presidential council had discussed the matter and agreed that the candidate should come from PKR.

However, a candidate has not been selected yet, Dr Mahathir, who is also the prime minister, said after the presidential council meeting.

Mat Suhaimi, who died on July 2, had served two terms as Sri Muda assemblyman before winning the Sungai Kandis seat in GE14 with 23,998 votes in a four-cornered fight.

He was the political secretary to then Selangor menteri besar Mohamad Azmin Ali.

PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said he had already asked Selangor PKR to shortlist candidates for the by-election.

Islamist party PAS said it would only contest if it was a straight fight.

PAS secretary-general Takiyuddin Hassan said this was because PAS had only recorded a mediocre performance in the state constituency during GE14 in May.

“If other opposition parties, such as Barisan Nasional, are not contesting, PAS is most likely to field its candidate for a straight fight.

“However, if there is a three-cornered fight, then PAS’ candidacy will be reconsidered because we want to avoid vote splitting, which will only bring about results similar to GE14,” Takiyuddin said. – July 9, 2018.

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Comments

  • Its just as good as not contesting Takiyuddin. UMNO-BN will surely contest. Why in the GE 14 PAS would want to go for a 3-cornered fight and for the by election the rules have changed. Putar alam.

    Posted 5 years ago by Anwar Ismail · Reply

  • All eyes will be on the people in the EC closely monitoring their staff and bosses how they will conduct the polls. This is due to the disgraceful and negligent conduct shown in GE14 where voters within the voting compound were turned away even though they have been queuing for hours before 5pm. The rakyat is still unhappy and disappointed that the government has not announced any plan to revamp the personnel and procedures to obviate a repetition of EC's disgraceful execution of their duties during GE14. The government is put on notice to carry out reforms without delay in this matter or we will vote them out the next time around.

    Posted 5 years ago by Panchen Low · Reply

  • Now PAS admitted they are vote spoiler... only aim to split vote on GE14.... ingatkan orang dah lupa apa yang mereka cakap last election... putar belit cakap... but memang lumrah bagi pas.

    Posted 5 years ago by Chee Kwong Wong · Reply