PONTIAN, Nov 2 — Six candidates were successfully nominated today for the Tanjung Piai by-election.
They are Pakatan Harapan’s Karmaine Sardini (Bersatu), Barisan Nasional’s Datuk Seri Dr Wee Jeck Seng (MCA), Gerakan’s Wendy Subramaniam, and Berjasa president Badhrulhisham Abdul Aziz.
Faridah Aryani Abdul Ghaffar and Ang Chuan Lock will contest as independents.
Karmaine, 66, the Tanjung Piai Parti Bersatu division chief, was the first to submit his papers at the nomination centre at Dewan Jubli Intan Sultan Ibrahim at Jalan Dewan here when it opened at 9am.
Wee, 55, followed later. He is a former Tanjung Piai parliamentarian and the constituency’s MCA division chief.
Next were Wendy, 38, a lawyer and Gerakan’s deputy secretary-general, and Badhrulhisham, 56.
Then came the independents, Ang, 49, and Faridah, 43.
The nomination centre closed at 10am.
At 11am, Election Commission (EC) returning officer Zulkifly Mohd Tahir confirmed all six nominations.
“The EC is satisfied that all six candidates have met the requirements and can stand as candidates for the P.165 Tanjung Piai parliamentary by-election,” he said.
The Tanjung Piai constituency is a Malay majority seat and has 52,978 voters, including 280 early voters. Malays comprise 57 per cent of the voters while Chinese comprise 41.4 per cent with the remaining made up of Indian voters.
The Tanjung Piai by-election is the eight since the 14th general election (GE14). By-elections have been held for the Rantau state seat (March 30); Sungai Kandis state seat (August 4 last year); Balakong and Seri Setia state seats (September 8 last year); Port Dickson parliamentary seat (October 13 last year); Cameron Highlands parliamentary seat (January 26) and Semenyih state seat (March 2).
Polling will be on November 16 with early voting on November 12.
The by-election was triggered after the incumbent, Datuk Dr Md Farid Md Rafik, died of heart complications on September 21.
Dr Md Farid won the seat in the previous general election after he defeated BN’s Wee and PAS’ Nordin Othman in a three-way contest.
The seat has been traditionally contested by MCA and DAP since 2004. In 2018, DAP ceded the seat to Bersatu to contest under its PH campaign.
