Pengkalan Pasir by-election, 2005
Encyclopedia
The Pengkalan Pasir by-election was held on December 6, 2005 in the Pengkalan Pasir
state assembly constituency of the PAS
-governed state of Kelantan
, Malaysia. Nominations were held on November 27, 2005, and the election was contested by Hanifa Ahmad of PAS, Hanafi Mamat of the United Malays National Organisation
(UMNO) in the Barisan Nasional
coalition, and Ibrahim Ali
, an independent candidate. The by-election was necessitated after the death of the incumbent, Wan Abdul Aziz Wan Jaafar]] from PAS, on October 31. Wan Abdul Aziz defeated Hanafi by 55 votes in the alaysian general election, 2004|2004 general election.
The eventual winner was Hanafi, who was initially announced to have won with a majority of 129 votes. This thin margin entitled Hanifa to a recount the following day, but the outcome was unaltered — Hanafi won 7,422 votes, defeating Hanifa, who polled 7,288 votes, by a margin of 134 votes. Ibrahim won 415 votes, losing his deposit. The outcome of the election has left the Kelantan state government in a precarious position, as a single defecting PAS member of the state assembly would result in Barisan Nasional forming the state government. As a result, the by-election campaign was fraught with many offers to assemblymen on both sides of gifts or government positions in return for defecting. There were also allegations of phantom voters from PAS, with several bus
es carrying suspected phantom voters being stopped by PAS supporters on election day.
In the 2004 general election, Barisan Nasional (BN) won 21 out of 45 seats in the Kelantan state assembly, a major setback for PAS, whose stronghold had always been Kelantan. PAS now governed the state with a thin three-seat majority in the state assembly. Wan Abdul Aziz's passing reduced that majority to two, and if BN wins the seat, PAS will govern by a one-seat majority.
However, BN's history of by-elections in Kelantan has not been favourable — of the 15 by-elections held there, BN has won only once. Out of the 11 elections held for the Pengkalan Pasir (formerly known as Bandar Pasir Mas) seat, BN won thrice — in the 1978, 1982 and 1986 general elections. In the 2004 general election, Wan Abdul Aziz defeated Hanafi by 55 votes, making the seat one of the most contested in the nation.
Before nominations commenced, the UMNO-owned New Straits Times
newspaper noted that both parties had already eagerly begun campaigning, with banners and posters erected. Although this is technically illegal, neither side has bothered to condemn this practice. The only period of time where it is legal to campaign is between nomination day and polling day — slightly more than a week.
Both parties selected their candidates internally as is the norm, without primary election
s, with Prime Minister
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
of UMNO reportedly having decided on the BN candidate. The candidates' identities were announced on the eve of nomination day. However, it was not known if Ibrahim Ali
would contest the seat, as although he had expressed interest, none of the major newspapers in Malaysia (most of which are owned by parties in BN) confirmed rumours that he would run. Ibrahim was formerly a Member of Parliament
for the seat of Pasir Mas
in Kelantan, and unsuccessfully ran for the seat in the 2004 general election. He was also a UMNO division chief before leaving the party.
Hanifa was formerly the Group Chief Executive of the Kelantan State Economic Development Corporation and is currently a member of the PAS Pasir Mas division committee, while Hanafi is the Vice President of the Malaysian Association of Authorised Land Surveyors and the UMNO Pasir Mas deputy division chief.
Due to the wafer-thin majority of PAS in the state assembly, there was much jockeying among BN, UMNO specifically, to see if a majority could be gained in the state assembly, whether by turning PAS assemblymen to the BN side or by forcing the dissolution of the assembly and holding fresh elections. On November 13, BN Kelantan chairman Annuar Musa announced his intent to get Kelantan Chief Minister Nik Aziz Nik Mat
of PAS to seek royal consent to dissolve the state assembly if PAS lost so they could receive a clear mandate from the voters. PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang
then said the party would not allow UMNO or BN to dictate terms to it.
Kelantan state executive councillor Husam Musa
then challenged all 21 BN assemblymen to resign to allow fresh elections to be held. Annuar took Husam up on his challenge, saying they would resign on December 1 to pave the way for snap elections. Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak
, then weighed in, saying all 44 assemblymen should resign, and not just the 21 from BN. Nik Aziz said he would "never entertain" such a request. Later the Election Commission deputy chairman Wan Ahmad Wan Omar said anyone who resigned would waive their rights to run in an election for the next five years unless the sultan of Kelantan dissolved the assembly. Finally, Prime Minister Abdullah told both sides to stop calling for each other's resignation, as the Election Commission had made it clear that this would not allow the incumbents to contest.
Both sides also attempted to woo assemblymen from the other party, with UMNO offering high-ranking posts in the state government to the first assemblymen to defect from PAS. PAS reciprocated this with a similar offer.
The election is widely viewed as a referendum on the policies of both parties. Conservative leaders in PAS, which has the avowed goal of establishing Malaysia as an Islamic theocracy
, were rejected in favour of more liberal ones in the recent party elections, while political pundits see the election as a possible bellwether on the people's views of Abdullah's and BN's policies. It is also viewed as an indicator of how people receive ousted Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim
, formerly of UMNO but now an advisor of Parti Keadilan Rakyat
and actively campaigning for PAS.
Mohamad Suji @ Ahmad Awang, a former religious teacher, was the first to file his papers, but had them rejected by the Election Commission for paying the nomination fee of RM5,000 with a crossed cheque instead of cash or a bank draft. The second attempted independent candidate was Fauziah Gani, a businesswoman, who also had her papers rejected for paying with a cheque.
After nominations closed, PAS filed an objection with the Election Commission, arguing that Hanafi was forbidden to run under the Universities and University Colleges Act 1975; Hanafi is a PhD
candidate at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
, and the act forbids all undergraduate and post-graduate students from being involved in any political activities whatsoever. However, the Electoral Commission refused to entertain the objection. The Election Commission's chairman, Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, said, "That objection is too trivial, democracy must be maintained... anyone who is qualified may run."
After nominations closed, Hanafi, Hanifa and Ibrahim appeared together holding hands to greet their supporters. Ibrahim requested that "BN and PAS should be gentlemen and refrain from using the Federal and State Government machinery to campaign for them," while Hanifa stated "The three-cornered fight will benefit us." Hanafi expressed confidence that the 18,411 voters in the constituency would choose BN over PAS, who had expressed similar worries as Ibrahim about the Federal Government being used to campaign for BN.
Both UMNO and PAS organised transportation for voters, with UMNO going as far as to pay for the expenses of bringing home out-of-state voters, including those living overseas. Polls opened at 9am and closed at 5pm, and in the evening Hanafi was declared the victor. However, as his margin of victory, 129 votes with 7,419 votes to Hanifa's 7,290, was smaller than 2%, election rules gave PAS the right to demand a recount the following day. The recount was held at 10am, and confirmed the result; however, Hanafi's margin was increased to 139, with the recount giving him 7,422 votes to Hanifa's 7,288. The turnout for the election was 83.04%, higher than the 77.6% seen in the previous year's general election.
The election result was seen as crushing for Ibrahim's political career, and also possibly for Anwar's as well. Anwar had lent heavy support to PAS, despite his proclaimed misgivings about its goal of establishing Malaysia as an Islamic state. PAS, which had been expecting the election to act as a bellwether on how the electorate would respond to its internal reforms, was seen by analysts as now having trouble evaluating its new policies due to the election's indeterminate results.
Although both Anwar and Ibrahim had large audiences at speeches (ceramah) they held, where they criticised, among others, Abdullah's Islam Hadhari
and the recent lock-up detainee abuse scandal
, on polling day, the voters appeared to desert PAS and Ibrahim. Some suggested this could be due to most of the attendees at the speeches not being voters in the constituency, while others argued that voters were swayed by BN's promises of development.
PAS declared BN had won by using illegal tactics, and declared it would file a report with the Election Commission (EC). Some cynical members of the independent media argued that the postal ballots had been stuffed, and asked how there could be 212 postal voters when there were only 195 registered postal voters, suggesting BN had won using underhanded tactics.
The Malaysian Chinese Association
(MCA), a key member of the Barisan Nasional, claimed they had succeeded at winning the Chinese vote in the constituency, with supposedly 95% of the 800 Chinese voters there voting for BN. "We even persuaded a few Chinese voters who were planning to go on holiday to China
to postpone their trip ... to vote on Tuesday," said one MCA official. He also said 80 of 130 Chinese voters living outside the constituency returned to cast their votes.
Pengkalan Pasir
Pengkalan Pasir is a small town in Kelantan, Malaysia.-Events:*6 December 2005 - Pengkalan Pasir by-elections...
state assembly constituency of the PAS
PAS (political party)
The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party commonly known as PAS or Pas, is an Islamist political party in Malaysia and is currently headed by Dato' Seri Abdul Hadi Awang...
-governed state of Kelantan
Kelantan
Kelantan is a state of Malaysia. The capital and royal seat is Kota Bharu. The Arabic honorific of the state is Darul Naim, ....
, Malaysia. Nominations were held on November 27, 2005, and the election was contested by Hanifa Ahmad of PAS, Hanafi Mamat of the United Malays National Organisation
United Malays National Organisation
The United Malays National Organisation, is Malaysia's largest political party; a founding member of the National Front coalition, which has played a dominant role in Malaysian politics since independence....
(UMNO) in the Barisan Nasional
Barisan Nasional
Barisan Nasional is a major political coalition in Malaysia, formed in 1973 as the successor to the Alliance . Along with its predecessor, it has been Malaysia's federal ruling political force since independence...
coalition, and Ibrahim Ali
Ibrahim Ali (Malaysia)
Dato' Ibrahim bin Ali is a Malaysian politician and is currently the member of parliament for Pasir Mas. He is also the founder and president of Malay rights group Perkasa.-Political career:...
, an independent candidate. The by-election was necessitated after the death of the incumbent, Wan Abdul Aziz Wan Jaafar]] from PAS, on October 31. Wan Abdul Aziz defeated Hanafi by 55 votes in the alaysian general election, 2004|2004 general election.
The eventual winner was Hanafi, who was initially announced to have won with a majority of 129 votes. This thin margin entitled Hanifa to a recount the following day, but the outcome was unaltered — Hanafi won 7,422 votes, defeating Hanifa, who polled 7,288 votes, by a margin of 134 votes. Ibrahim won 415 votes, losing his deposit. The outcome of the election has left the Kelantan state government in a precarious position, as a single defecting PAS member of the state assembly would result in Barisan Nasional forming the state government. As a result, the by-election campaign was fraught with many offers to assemblymen on both sides of gifts or government positions in return for defecting. There were also allegations of phantom voters from PAS, with several bus
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...
es carrying suspected phantom voters being stopped by PAS supporters on election day.
Background
Hanafi Mamat was born in Kg Padang Tokla Pasir Mas Kelantan. He attended Sultan Ibrahim Primary School till 1966 and proceeded to Sultan Ibrahim Secondary School in 1967. After graduating from University of East London (formerly known North East London Polytechnic)he joined the Survey and Mapping Department Malaysia serving as a district surveyor and assistant director in the states of Pahang,Terengganu and Kelantan. He resigned from government service in 1990 to contest for the Pasir Mas Parliamentary seat for Barisan Nasional (BN)but lost. He was UMNO youth division chief then.In the 2004 general election, Barisan Nasional (BN) won 21 out of 45 seats in the Kelantan state assembly, a major setback for PAS, whose stronghold had always been Kelantan. PAS now governed the state with a thin three-seat majority in the state assembly. Wan Abdul Aziz's passing reduced that majority to two, and if BN wins the seat, PAS will govern by a one-seat majority.
However, BN's history of by-elections in Kelantan has not been favourable — of the 15 by-elections held there, BN has won only once. Out of the 11 elections held for the Pengkalan Pasir (formerly known as Bandar Pasir Mas) seat, BN won thrice — in the 1978, 1982 and 1986 general elections. In the 2004 general election, Wan Abdul Aziz defeated Hanafi by 55 votes, making the seat one of the most contested in the nation.
Before nominations commenced, the UMNO-owned New Straits Times
New Straits Times
The New Straits Times is an English-language newspaper published in Malaysia. It is Malaysia's oldest newspaper still in print , having been founded as The Straits Times in 1845, and was reestablished as the "New Straits Times" in 1965. The paper served as Malaysia's only broadsheet format English...
newspaper noted that both parties had already eagerly begun campaigning, with banners and posters erected. Although this is technically illegal, neither side has bothered to condemn this practice. The only period of time where it is legal to campaign is between nomination day and polling day — slightly more than a week.
Both parties selected their candidates internally as is the norm, without primary election
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....
s, with Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Malaysia
The Prime Minister of Malaysia is the indirectly elected head of government of Malaysia. He is officially appointed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the head of state, who in HM's judgment is likely to command the confidence of the majority of the members of that House of Representatives , the...
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Tun Abdullah bin Haji Ahmad Badawi is a Malaysian politician who served as Prime Minister from 2003 to 2009. He was also the President of the United Malays National Organisation , the largest political party in Malaysia, and led the governing Barisan Nasional parliamentary coalition...
of UMNO reportedly having decided on the BN candidate. The candidates' identities were announced on the eve of nomination day. However, it was not known if Ibrahim Ali
Ibrahim Ali (Malaysia)
Dato' Ibrahim bin Ali is a Malaysian politician and is currently the member of parliament for Pasir Mas. He is also the founder and president of Malay rights group Perkasa.-Political career:...
would contest the seat, as although he had expressed interest, none of the major newspapers in Malaysia (most of which are owned by parties in BN) confirmed rumours that he would run. Ibrahim was formerly a Member of Parliament
Parliament of Malaysia
The Parliament of Malaysia is the national legislature of Malaysia, based on the Westminster system. The bicameral parliament consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The King as the Head of State is the third component of Parliament....
for the seat of Pasir Mas
Pasir Mas
-Geography:The district of Pasir Mas covers an area of 577 square kilometers and is bordered by the districts of Tumpat to the north, Tanah Merah to the south, Kota Bahru to the east, and the Thai district of Su-ngai Kolok to the west...
in Kelantan, and unsuccessfully ran for the seat in the 2004 general election. He was also a UMNO division chief before leaving the party.
Hanifa was formerly the Group Chief Executive of the Kelantan State Economic Development Corporation and is currently a member of the PAS Pasir Mas division committee, while Hanafi is the Vice President of the Malaysian Association of Authorised Land Surveyors and the UMNO Pasir Mas deputy division chief.
Due to the wafer-thin majority of PAS in the state assembly, there was much jockeying among BN, UMNO specifically, to see if a majority could be gained in the state assembly, whether by turning PAS assemblymen to the BN side or by forcing the dissolution of the assembly and holding fresh elections. On November 13, BN Kelantan chairman Annuar Musa announced his intent to get Kelantan Chief Minister Nik Aziz Nik Mat
Nik Aziz Nik Mat
Dato' Bentara Setia Haji Nik Abdul Aziz bin Nik Mat is a Malaysian politician, a Muslim ulama and currently the Menteri Besar of the state of Kelantan...
of PAS to seek royal consent to dissolve the state assembly if PAS lost so they could receive a clear mandate from the voters. PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang
Abdul Hadi Awang
Dato' Seri Haji Abdul Hadi bin Awang is the current President of the Parti Islam SeMalaysia, an Islamist political party in Malaysia...
then said the party would not allow UMNO or BN to dictate terms to it.
Kelantan state executive councillor Husam Musa
Husam Musa
Dato' Paduka Haji Husam Musa is one of the current three PAS Vice Presidents. He was born at Kampung Kota, Kota Bharu, in the state of Kelantan, Malaysia. Husam is a state assemblyman for electorate of N.17 Salor...
then challenged all 21 BN assemblymen to resign to allow fresh elections to be held. Annuar took Husam up on his challenge, saying they would resign on December 1 to pave the way for snap elections. Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak
Najib Tun Razak
Dato' Sri Haji Mohd Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak is the sixth, and since 2009, Prime Minister of Malaysia. He previously held the post of Deputy Prime Minister from 7 January 2004 until he succeeded Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as Prime Minister on 3 April 2009. Najib is President of the United...
, then weighed in, saying all 44 assemblymen should resign, and not just the 21 from BN. Nik Aziz said he would "never entertain" such a request. Later the Election Commission deputy chairman Wan Ahmad Wan Omar said anyone who resigned would waive their rights to run in an election for the next five years unless the sultan of Kelantan dissolved the assembly. Finally, Prime Minister Abdullah told both sides to stop calling for each other's resignation, as the Election Commission had made it clear that this would not allow the incumbents to contest.
Both sides also attempted to woo assemblymen from the other party, with UMNO offering high-ranking posts in the state government to the first assemblymen to defect from PAS. PAS reciprocated this with a similar offer.
The election is widely viewed as a referendum on the policies of both parties. Conservative leaders in PAS, which has the avowed goal of establishing Malaysia as an Islamic theocracy
Theocracy
Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....
, were rejected in favour of more liberal ones in the recent party elections, while political pundits see the election as a possible bellwether on the people's views of Abdullah's and BN's policies. It is also viewed as an indicator of how people receive ousted Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim
Anwar Ibrahim
Anwar bin Ibrahim is a Malaysian politician who served as Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister from 1993 to 1998. Early in his career, Anwar was a close ally of Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad but subsequently emerged as the most prominent critic of Mahathir's government.In 1999, he was sentenced...
, formerly of UMNO but now an advisor of Parti Keadilan Rakyat
Parti Keadilan Rakyat
The People's Justice Party , often known simply as KeADILan) is a centrist political party in Malaysia formed in 2003 by a merger of the National Justice Party and the older Malaysian People's Party...
and actively campaigning for PAS.
Nominations
As expected, Hanafi, Hanifa and Ibrahim all submitted their nominations in the appropriate manner between 9 and 10am on nomination day, November 27. Nominations closed at 10am. However, to the surprise of bystanders, two people later appeared to file their nomination papers and run as independent candidates.Mohamad Suji @ Ahmad Awang, a former religious teacher, was the first to file his papers, but had them rejected by the Election Commission for paying the nomination fee of RM5,000 with a crossed cheque instead of cash or a bank draft. The second attempted independent candidate was Fauziah Gani, a businesswoman, who also had her papers rejected for paying with a cheque.
After nominations closed, PAS filed an objection with the Election Commission, arguing that Hanafi was forbidden to run under the Universities and University Colleges Act 1975; Hanafi is a PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
candidate at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia is the oldest public engineering and technological university in Malaysia. The university specialises in technical studies, with separate faculties for Education, Pure Sciences, Management, and Human Resources Development. It is the country's major source of graduate...
, and the act forbids all undergraduate and post-graduate students from being involved in any political activities whatsoever. However, the Electoral Commission refused to entertain the objection. The Election Commission's chairman, Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, said, "That objection is too trivial, democracy must be maintained... anyone who is qualified may run."
After nominations closed, Hanafi, Hanifa and Ibrahim appeared together holding hands to greet their supporters. Ibrahim requested that "BN and PAS should be gentlemen and refrain from using the Federal and State Government machinery to campaign for them," while Hanifa stated "The three-cornered fight will benefit us." Hanafi expressed confidence that the 18,411 voters in the constituency would choose BN over PAS, who had expressed similar worries as Ibrahim about the Federal Government being used to campaign for BN.
Election day
On the morning of election day before the polls opened, PAS supporters held up buses they suspected of ferrying phantom voters to polling stations. The buses were diverted to a police station, where the identities of their passengers were ascertained. It was later announced that they were legitimate voters but registered in other constituencies, and had been brought in by UMNO for some last-minute campaigning.Both UMNO and PAS organised transportation for voters, with UMNO going as far as to pay for the expenses of bringing home out-of-state voters, including those living overseas. Polls opened at 9am and closed at 5pm, and in the evening Hanafi was declared the victor. However, as his margin of victory, 129 votes with 7,419 votes to Hanifa's 7,290, was smaller than 2%, election rules gave PAS the right to demand a recount the following day. The recount was held at 10am, and confirmed the result; however, Hanafi's margin was increased to 139, with the recount giving him 7,422 votes to Hanifa's 7,288. The turnout for the election was 83.04%, higher than the 77.6% seen in the previous year's general election.
The election result was seen as crushing for Ibrahim's political career, and also possibly for Anwar's as well. Anwar had lent heavy support to PAS, despite his proclaimed misgivings about its goal of establishing Malaysia as an Islamic state. PAS, which had been expecting the election to act as a bellwether on how the electorate would respond to its internal reforms, was seen by analysts as now having trouble evaluating its new policies due to the election's indeterminate results.
Although both Anwar and Ibrahim had large audiences at speeches (ceramah) they held, where they criticised, among others, Abdullah's Islam Hadhari
Islam Hadhari
Islam Hadhari or "Civilizational Islam" is a theory of government based on the principles of Islam as derived from the Qur'an...
and the recent lock-up detainee abuse scandal
Malaysian lock-up detainee abuse scandal
The Malaysian lock-up detainee abuse scandal is a scandal involving the abuse allegations of detainees under the care of the Royal Malaysian Police which occurred in 2005....
, on polling day, the voters appeared to desert PAS and Ibrahim. Some suggested this could be due to most of the attendees at the speeches not being voters in the constituency, while others argued that voters were swayed by BN's promises of development.
PAS declared BN had won by using illegal tactics, and declared it would file a report with the Election Commission (EC). Some cynical members of the independent media argued that the postal ballots had been stuffed, and asked how there could be 212 postal voters when there were only 195 registered postal voters, suggesting BN had won using underhanded tactics.
The Malaysian Chinese Association
Malaysian Chinese Association
Malaysian Chinese Association is a uni-racial political party in Malaysia that represents the Malaysian Chinese ethnicity; it is one of the three major component parties of the ruling coalition in Malaysia called the Barisan Nasional in Malay, or National Front in English.Along with the largest...
(MCA), a key member of the Barisan Nasional, claimed they had succeeded at winning the Chinese vote in the constituency, with supposedly 95% of the 800 Chinese voters there voting for BN. "We even persuaded a few Chinese voters who were planning to go on holiday to China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
to postpone their trip ... to vote on Tuesday," said one MCA official. He also said 80 of 130 Chinese voters living outside the constituency returned to cast their votes.