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Unofficial: PH retains Balakong state seat

BANGI: Pakatan Harapan (PH) candidate Wong Siew Ki unofficially emerged as the winner in the Balakong by-election after securing 19,706 votes as of 8.43pm.

MCA's candidate Tan Chee Teong garnered 3,543 votes.

The majority currently stood at 16,543.

This was the first time PH and MCA logos were used for the by-election.

The by-election today involved 16 polling centres and 128 streams that opened from 8am to 5.30pm.

Voter turnout, according to the Election Commission (EC) was at 43 per cent out of 62,188 voters.

EC's electoral roll on July 2, showed that there were 62,219 voters eligible to vote in the by-election.

Twenty eight out of 31 early voters, comprising police officers had voted on Sept 4.

Three of them did not vote due to service expiry and disciplinary action.

Balakong by-election turnout was the lowest recorded so far after Penanti by-election (in 2009) which recorded 46 per cent voter turnout, while Chempaka by-election (in 2015) saw a 55 per cent voter turnout.

The recent Sungai Kandis by-election, held after 14th General Election, recorded 49.8 per cent.

The by-election was held following the death of its assemblyman, Eddie Ng Tien Chee, in an accident at KM11.7 of the Grand Saga Highway on July 20.

In the May general election, Ng retained his Balakong seat for the second term after defeating Lim Chin Wah from Barisan Nasional and Mohamad Ibrahim Ghazali of Pas with a 35,538-vote majority.

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