Malaysia's Bukit Gelugor by-election: Son of late Karpal Singh wins

GEORGE TOWN (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Ramkarpal Singh has succeeded his father, the late opposition leader Karpal Singh, as the MP for Bukit Gelugor after a landslide victory in a by-election on Sunday.

The Democratic Action Party (DAP) candidate polled 41,242 votes to beat his closest opponent Parti Cinta Malaysia vice-president Datuk Huan Cheng Guan by a whopping 37,659 vote majority.

Huan secured 3,583 votes while the two independent candidates, Mohamed Nabi Bux Mohd Nabi Abd Sathar and Abu Backer Sidek Mohd Zan, obtained 799 and 225 votes respectively.

Huan, Mohamed Nabi Bux and Abu Backer Sidek lost their deposits after failing to secure one-eighth or 12.5 per cent of the total votes.

The total spoilt votes were 539.

Returning officer Anuar Yahya made the announcement at the Dewan Sri Pinang tallying centre.

The turnout for the polls was 46,099 or 56 per cent, one of the lowest turnouts in by-election history.

There are 82,431 registered voters in the Bukit Gelugor parliamentary constituency, with 74.33 per cent Chinese voters (61,267), 14.45 per cent Malay voters (11,913), 10.73 per cent Indian voters (8,848) and 0.5 per cent others (403).

The turnout for the last general election was 86 per cent, with Karpal Singh winning the seat with a majority of 41,778 votes against Barisan Nasional's Teh Beng Yeam.

The by-election was called after Karpal Singh died in a traffic accident last month.

The Bukit Gelugor parliamentary seat was created following a redelineation exercise in 2004.

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