PUTRAJAYA, March 6 — The Balingian by-election will be held at March 29, six days after the Kajang by-election, Election Commission (EC) announced today.

Nomination day for the Sarawak state by-election has been set up at March 17, while early voting will be at March 25.

This will leave each candidate 12 days to campaign.

“In our previous experiences, if there were by-elections going to be held at around the same time, we would usually hold it concurrently to save time, to some extent save cost, and so that prolonged politicking can be reduced.

“For N.51 Balingian, we have tried to hold it simultaneously, but technically we could not as time was running too short,” EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof told reporters here.

Abdul Aziz said that EC officials could not come up with the voters’ registry in time to hold the Balingian by-election on March 23.

He also said that the by-election was scheduled for a Saturday to enable Christian voters to attend Sunday church service.

The election is expected to cost EC RM910,213.

Balingian was previously held by Barisan Nasional’s (BN) Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud, who is obliged to vacate the state seat after becoming Sarawak’s new governor this month, replacing Tun Abang Muhammad Salahuddin Abang Barieng.

The former Sarawak chief minister was president of Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) president.

Taib has since appointed his party vice-president Tan Sri Adenan Satem as his successor.

When asked about the swift decision to set dates for Balingian compared to Kajang, Abdul Aziz explained that the EC has had time to prepare for the former unlike the latter.

“Kajang caught us by surprise. We didn’t see any possible by-election for at least two to three years… We were focusing on something else, like the redelineation,” he said.

In comparison, the EC had known that Taib will vacate his posts on February 28, Abdul Aziz said.

As of February 27, there are 13,366 registered voters in Balingian, including 133 early voters.

Taib had won Balingian in the 2011 Sarawak state election by a 5,154-vote margin in a three-cornered fight against Datuk Salleh Jafaruddin a former deputy education minister who garnered 1,056 votes, and against PKR’s Suriarti Abdullah who scored 871 votes.