PETALING JAYA: The Kemaman by-election will witness a straight fight between Terengganu menteri besar Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar and Barisan Nasional’s Raja Affandi Raja Noor.
Samsuri, who is the assemblyman for Ru Redang, is also a PAS vice-president, while Raja Affandi is a retired general and former defence forces chief.
The by-election was called following an election court decision on Sept 26 which annulled the victory of PAS candidate Che Alias Hamid in the 15th general election (GE15) last year.
The election court held that the distribution of government aid to voters during the campaign period constituted election bribery.
Che Alias won the Kemaman seat in GE15 with a majority of 27,179 votes over his closest rival, Terengganu Umno chairman and former menteri besar Ahmad Said. The other two candidates in the four-cornered contest were Hasuni Sudin of Pakatan Harapan and Rosli Ab Ghani of Pejuang.
In GE15, PAS won all eight parliamentary seats in Terengganu.
The Kemaman by-election will take place on Dec 2 with early voting set for Nov 28. According to the Election Commission, there are 141,790 voters in the parliamentary constituency.
