KULIM – Kedah Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairman Datuk Mahfuz Omar is optimistic that a high turnout will bring victory for the coalition in the Padang Serai parliamentary election.
He said that PH is hoping for a 70% turnout, which is similar to the 2018 general election. As of noon, 36% of Padang Serai voters have come out to cast their ballots.
Rival Perikatan Nasional (PN) candidate Datuk Azman Nasrudin is also hoping for a reasonable turnout, especially among the young blue-collar workers here.
This morning, voters took advantage of the pleasant weather here to line up at their respective polling stations with many wearing masks and using the provided hand sanitisers.
PH candidate Mohamed Sofee Razak and Azman were seen going around the various voting stations to thank the balloters for participating in the by-election.
Meanwhile, police’s 15th general election (GE15) operations director Datuk Seri Hazani Ghazali said the voting processes, which will end at 6pm, for Padang Serai and the Tioman state seat in Pahang are running smoothly.
“There is no problem, Malaysians are mature enough and disciplined. So far (as of 11am), no report has been made (regarding any incident).
The by-election sees a six-cornered fight between Azman, Sofee, Pejuang’s Hamzah Abdul Rahman, Barisan Nasional’s (BN) Datuk C. Sivaraajh, Warisan’s Mohd Bakhri Hashim as well as an independent Sreanandha Rao.
However, BN and Warisan had said they would give way to the PH candidate.
Padang Serai has 133,767 voters, with 81,230 of them in the Lunas state constituency – and the remaining 52,546 in Merbau Pulas.
In terms of ethnicity, 70.11% of them are Bumiputera, 15.11% are Indians, and 14.16% are Chinese.
PH has held this seat for three terms through three representatives – N. Gobalakrishnan (who became independent mid-term), N. Surendran and M. Karupaiya.
The by-election was supposed to be held on November 19 with the 15th general election but incumbent Karupaiya died three days before polling day.
As for the Tioman by-election, PN candidate Md Yunus Ramli died on the morning of polling day. The state seat is seeing a five-cornered fight involving candidates from BN, PN, PH, Pejuang and an independent candidate.
PH, however, has decided to give way to the BN candidate. – The Vibes, December 7, 2022
