The Tanjung Piai by-election will be held on Nov 16 with a 14-day campaign period, Election Commission (EC) chairperson Azhar Azizan Harun announced today.

Nomination day for candidates will take place on Nov 2.

Both dates fall on Saturdays with polling day coinciding with Umno’s general assembly while nomination day is on the same day as MCA’s annual assembly.

The seat fell vacant following the death of Bersatu's Dr Md Farid Md Rafik on Sept 21. Farid was also a deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department.

In the 14th general election, Farid defeated MCA's Wee Jeck Seng with a wafer-thin majority of 524 votes. 

The upcoming contest would be a litmus test for both Pakatan Harapan and the Umno-PAS alliance amid race and religious issues dominating the Malaysian political landscape.

Azhar said the Dewan Jubli Intan Sultan Ibrahim in Pontian, Johor will be used as the centre for the nomination and vote tallying.

Early voting will be held on Nov 12, while postal voting applications will open today (Oct 1) and close on Oct 31.

More voting streams

As per the recent by-elections, voting will be from 8am to 5.30pm.

EC will live stream unofficial election results on its website, social media as well as at the vote tallying centre on polling day before the official numbers are announced.

It expects to spend RM2.67 million on the by-election and targets 70 percent voter turnout (37,090 voters).

“To encourage voters to come out and fulfil their responsibility to vote, the EC will run a campaign called 'Jom Kita Undi' (Let’s Vote) on multiple media platforms including electronic media, social media, print media, advertisements as well as hang banners at strategic areas [...],” Azhar said during the press conference in Putrajaya today.

For the purpose of this by-election, the EC has added 26 voting streams, raising the total number of streams to 127 from 101 in GE14.

Two streams in each of the 28 polling centres will be allocated to voters above the age of 60.

As for election observers, Azhar said they will be able to scrutinise all processes from nomination to polling.

They will be allowed access into the nomination centre, polling centre, vote counting centre and vote-tallying centre.

Applications can be emailed from today (Oct 1) to Oct 31.