KUALA BESUT BY-ELECTION The Election Commission has rejected the proposal by Communications and Multimedia minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek to telecast live on the government-run Radio Televisyen Malaysia the vote counting of Kuala Besut by-election on July 24.
Its chief Abdul Aziz Yusof argued it was sufficient to have polling agents from contesting candidates to monitor the vote-counting process.
As an ‘independent’ commission, said Aziz, broadcasting the process will set a precedent for ‘other parties’.
“Therefore, EC has made a decision that the recording of the vote counting process must be managed by EC and not others. For Kuala Besut by-election, EC has discussed and decided that there will be no telecast,” he stressed.
The nomination, early voting and voting day for the Kuala Besut by-election have been set on July 12 (Friday), 20 (Saturday) and 24 (Wednesday) respectively, all of which fall during the fasting month of Ramadan.
In his response, PAS Youth chief and Temerloh member of parliament Nasrudin Hassan slammed the decision to hold the by-election on a weekday.
“This is inconvenient to voters and party activists,” he wrote on Facebook.
Meanwhile, Aziz said EC was powerless if a hung state assembly takes place in Terengganu in the event of a PAS victory.
“If the matter cannot be resolved, I believe the Terengganu Sultan will intervene and if it continues, a by-election [sic] will take place again,” he added.
He also admitted that it was an oversight for Terengganu to be left with even number of state seats.
As such, Aziz said the EC would ensure every state have odd number of total seats to avoid a hung state assembly.
The Kuala Besut state seat became vacant after the death of BN's Dr Abdul Rahman Mokhtar last week. Following this, the BN now has 16 seats while PR has 15.
- Harakahdaily
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