Sg Kandis by-election: Nomination day on July 21, Aug 4 set for polls
PUTRAJAYA: The Sungai Kandis state by- election will be on Aug 4, said Election Commission ( EC) deputy chairman Tan Sri Othman Mahmood.
He said the nomination day would be on July 21 and the campaign period is 14 days.
“The electoral roll to be used for this by- election is the first quarter of 2018 which is updated until July 2, 2018. The electoral roll contains 51,230 registered voters comprising 51,217 ordinary voters and 13 overseas voters,” he said at a media conference after a special meeting on the Sungai Kandis byelection at the EC headquarters here yesterday.
He said there were no early voters in the Sungai Kandis by- election while overseas and domestic postal voting applications would be opened from today and closes on July 21. The Tanjung Hall of the Shah Alam City Council would be used as the nomination centre and the official vote tallying centre, he said.
Shah Alam mayor Datuk Ahmad Zaharin Mohd Saad has been appointed as the Sungai Kandis by- election returning officer and he is assisted by three assistant returning officers and 865 personnel appointed from the public, he said.
He said it was estimated that the Sungai Kandis by- election will involve an allocation of RM1.4 million.
The Sungai Kandis state seat was left vacant following the death of its incumbent Mat Shuhaimi Shafiei on July 2.
Mat Shuhaimi, 50, who was also the former political secretary to the Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali, died at the Subang Jaya Medical Centre at about 11.10am on Monday due to lymphoma cancer.
Meanwhile, Othman said the EC made several improvements for this by- election, including setting up two polling lanes for voters aged 60 and above and adding more polling lanes at polling centres that had many voters.
“A total of 21 new lanes have been created to avoid too many voters in any one lane, making it a total of 109 lanes compared to 88 during the 14th General Election on May 9. The EC has also extended the polling hours from 8am to 5.30pm instead of 5pm before this,” he said. He said the changes were made based on the feedback sent to the EC during GE14, and they would continued to be implemented if there was a positive response from the public.
In addition, he said the EC would also offer any non-governmental organisation or body which met the conditions and was interested, to be an observer during the election process beginning from the nomination day until the election results were announced.
In GE14, Shuhaimi who represented PKR defended the Sungai Kandis (formerly Sri Muda) state seat for the third consecutive term with a majority of 12,480 votes in a four- cornered fight against BN, PAS and PRM candidates.