THE Election Commission will meet on October 1 to decide on the dates for the Tanjung Piai by-election campaign , said Mohamed Elias Abu Bakar

The EC secretary said the chairman Azhar Azizan Harun would head the meeting which would also set the dates for nomination and early voting.

Elias said the EC today received official notice from parliament that the seat in Pontian, Johor, had fallen vacant due to the death of the incumbent Dr Md Farid Md Rafik.

A by-election has to be held within 60 days of the EC’s receipt of notice from the House.

Dr Farid, 42, who was a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, died of a heart attack on Saturday in Pontian Hospital.

In the general election last year, Farid narrowly defeated MCA’s Wee Jeck Seng, who had held the seat for two terms, by 524 votes. 

The other contender for the seat, Nordin Othman of PAS, polled 2,962 votes.

The constituency has 53,528 voters, with 57% of them Malay, 42%, Chinese and the remainder, Indian. – September 23, 2019.