Election

Manik Urai by-election:
Voter turnout one of biggest

2009/07/15

Sulaiman Jaafar and Sharifah Mahsinah Abdullah

KUALA KRAI: Pas candidate Fauzi Abdullah won the Manik Urai by-election with a slim majority of 65 votes defeating Barisan Nasional candidate Tuan Aziz Tuan Mat. Fauzi obtained 5,348 votes against Tuan Aziz's 5,283. There were 117 spoilt votes.

Voter turnover was 87 per cent, one of the biggest in recent elections.

The results were announced by returning officer Adnan Husin at the main counting centre at SMK Yahya Petra 1 here at 9.10 last night.

It was greeted with cheers by thousands of Pas supporters who had waited patiently outside the school compound.

Fauzi, 50, thanked party workers, voters and also the police and the Election Commission.

"I'm glad that the election went on smoothly. I promise I will serve the people in the constituency," he said.

Meanwhile, state executive councillor Datuk Husam Musa, who is also Kelantan Pas deputy commissioner, claimed that money politics was rampant and a lot of envelopes of different colours were given to voters.

"I thank the voters for sticking with Pas. "We don't care about the majority as the important thing is that we have won over the government's machinery. This is a victory for the people of Kelantan."

Husam said the state Pas would hold a post-mortem on the election results.

BN election director Datuk Mustapa Mohamed said although they lost, he was proud that they managed to reduce greatly the majority of the Pas candidate.

"This is a morale victory for BN. Although Tuan Aziz was defeated, he was the better candidate," he said at the South Kelantan Development Authority (Kesedar) regional office here.

Mustapa said although there was not much problem in the voting process, he was disappointed that Pas still practised gangsterism as several Puteri Umno members were injured in a scuffle outside a polling station.

Tuan Aziz said he would continue with his struggle and would try to attract young voters in the future.

The by-election was held following the death of Manik Urai state assemblyman Ismail Yaacob on May 22. In the general election last year, Ismail defeated BN's Zulkifli Omar with a 1,352 majority.