PONTIAN: All the 27 polling centres with 125 streams for the Tanjung Piai parliamentary by-election were closed at 5.30pm today, marking the end of voting which began at 8am.
Soon after the centres were closed, all the ballot boxes from the 125 streams were taken to the vote-tallying centre at Dewan Jubli Intan Sultan Ibrahim here. The results are expected to be announced at about 10pm.
The Election Commission (EC) said voter turnout had reached its target of 70% by 4pm.
The by-election is a six-cornered contest involving Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) Karmaine Sardini, Barisan Nasional’s Datuk Seri Dr Wee Jeck Seng, Gerakan’s Wendy Subramaniam, Berjasa’s Datuk Dr Badhrulhisham Abdul Aziz and two independent candidates, Dr Ang Chuan Lock and Faridah Aryani Abd Ghaffar.
Tanjung Piai has 52,471 regular voters.
Last Tuesday, 91% of the 280 early voters comprising police personnel had cast their votes at Bangunan Perkep at the Pontian district police headquarters.
The Tanjung Piai by-election, the ninth to be held after the general election in May last year, was triggered by the death of Datuk Dr Md Farid Md Rafik of PH on Sept 21. — Bernama
