The Election Commission (EC) has fixed June 18 for the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections.

“The EC has decided the two by-elections will run concurrently.

“The nomination day will be on June 5, early voting will be on June 14 and the polling day will be on June 18,” EC chief Mohd Hashim Abdullah told a press conference in Putrajaya this morning.

The two parliamentary seats became vacant after the demise of Plantation Industries and Commodities Deputy Minister Noriah Kasnon and Wan Muhammad Khairil Anuar Wan Ahmad in a helicopter crash on May 5 in Sarawak.

They were the MPs for Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar respectively.

The polling day will be preceded by two weeks of campaigning in the respective constituencies.

Hashim (photo) added that the two by-elections will cost the EC RM2.7 million in total.

For Sungai Besar, there are 42,365 registered normal voters, 286 early voters and four absent voters.

Meanwhile, for Kuala Kangsar, there are 32,632 normal voters, 312 early voters and five absent voters.

In the previous elections, Umno's Wan Mohammad Khairil won in Kuala Kangsar against PAS candidate Khalil Idham Lim Abdullah and independent candidate Kamilia Ibrahim. He won by 1,082 majority.

Noriah, also from Umno, retained her seat in Sungai Besar against PAS' Mohamed Salleh Husin, with a slim 399-majority.

The two seats had 84.3 percent and 88.3 percent voter turnout in the 13th general elections respectively.