Barisan Nasional found some solace by winning the Tioman state seat after Perikatan Nasional grabbed the Padang Serai parliamentary seat.

Umno’s Datuk Seri Mohd Johari Hussain successfully retained the Tioman seat in a neck-and-neck race, with a 573-vote majority.

The final tally at 9.21pm showed Mohd Johari securing victory with 8,080 votes, compared with Perikatan’s Nor Idayu Hashim (PAS) who received 7,507 votes.

Pakatan Harapan’s Mohd Fadzli Mohd Ramly, Pejuang’s Osman Bakar and Independent candidate Sulaiman Bakar all lost their deposits after having failed to secure one-eighth of the total votes.

Although Mohd Fadzli withdrew from the campaign to support Mohd Johari, he still garnered 784 votes as his name remained on ballot papers.This was the first successful partnership between Barisan and Pakatan in an election campaign since the two coalitions joined forces to form the Pahang government, mirroring their cooperation at the federal level.

Barisan now has 17 seats in the state assembly, equal to Perikatan, while Pakatan holds eight seats.

Turnout in the electorate of 28,465 voters was 58.39%.

The Tioman election was postponed due to the death of Perikatan candidate Md Yunus Ramli hours before polling began on Nov 19.

In Alor Setar, Datuk Azman Nasrudin from Perikatan won the Padang Serai parliamentary seat with an impressive 16,260-vote majority.

Azman, who is also the Lunas assemblyman, polled 51,637 votes to beat Pakatan’s candidate Dr Mohamad Sofee Razak who garnered 35,377 votes.

Barisan’s Datuk Sivarraajh Chandran, who had actually withdrawn, still managed to get a healthy 2,983 votes.

Parti Warisan’s Mohd Bakhri Hashim (149 votes), Pejuang’s Hamzah Abd Rahman (424) and Independent candidate Sreanandha Rao (846) lost their deposits.

Azman, who was at his command centre at Lunas, thanked the Perikatan election machinery in Kedah and the whole country.

“This win is a clear message that the people want a clean government and not a government with kleptocratic elements in it,” he said.

Earlier in the day, thousands of people including first-time voters had cast their votes at 46 polling centres with 230 voting streams in Padang Serai, marking a 68% voter turnout. Spanning some 343km, the Padang Serai constituency in Kedah has 133,870 voters.

GE15 polling for the Padang Serai seat was postponed following the death of incumbent M. Karupaiya of Pakatan three days before voting on Nov 19.

Source:
courtesy of THE STAR

by THE STAR

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