KAJANG: Barisan Nasional (BN) wrested the Semenyih State Legislative Assembly Seat after its candidate, Zakaria Hanafi, won the four-cornered contest in the by-election for the state constituency with a majority of 1,914 votes.
Zakaria, 58, polled 19,780 votes to beat Pakatan Harapan (PH) candidate Muhammad Aiman Zainali, 30, who obtained 17,866 votes; Nik Aziz Afiq Abdul, 25, from Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) (847 votes) and independent candidate who is also a social activist, Kuan Chee Heng, 56, (725 votes).
The official results were announced by Returning Officer Datuk Mohd Sayuthi Bakar at about 9.20pm at the Dewan Seri Cempaka, Kajang Municipal Council, Saujana Impian here.
The victory gives BN its fifth seat in the Selangor state assembly. It had won four seats in the assembly in the 14th general election (GE14) in May last year. PH has 50 seats in the assembly and PAS, one.
The Semenyih seat fell vacant following the death of the PH assemblyman, Bakhtiar Mohd Nor of Bersatu, on Jan 11.
The constituency has 54,503 registered voters, comprising 53,520 ordinary voters, 951 early voters and 32 absentee voters who are abroad.
The percentage of voters who turned out for today’s by-election was 73.24%, down from 87.90% in GE14.
The early voting last Tuesday saw a turnout of 78%.
The Semenyih by-election is the sixth by-election after the 14th general election (GE14) held in May 2018.
The previous by-elections were for the Sungai Kandis state seat (on Aug 4 last year); Balakong and Seri Setia state seats (Sept 8 last year); Port Dickson parliamentary seat (Oct 13 last year) and Cameron Highlands parliamentary seat (Jan 26 this year). — Bernama
