KT by-election fixed on 17 Jan 2009

The Elections Commission had today announced that the Kuala Trengganu parliamentary by-election would be held on 17 January next year. The nomination would be carried out on 6 January which gave a campaign period of 11 days.

The Pakatan Rakyat candidacy is expected to be filled by PAS while the BN has yet to confirm theirs, but as expected Umno would be the one to take on PAS as per the previous general elections, where the BN had only managed to retained the seat with a simple majority.

The minority Chinese voters may very well decide the outcome of the upcoming Kuala Terengganu by-election if the Malay votes are divided equally between Umno and PAS.

With 88 percent of voters in the area being Malays, Chinese voters make up only 11 percent of the total voters, controlling around 8,800 votes.