Result of the Bukit Gelugor By-election

Result of the Bukit Gelugor By-election held on 25.05.14 has more to tell

The result of the By-election was announced by the Chairman of the Election Commission at 9.05 pm after the closing of the voting at5.00pm.

Candidate Ramkarpal of the DAP won the Bukit Gelugor Parliamentary seat. He scored 41,242 votes which was approximately 88% of the total 46,999 votes casted. He obtained the majority of 37,659 votes. This showed the constituents preferred him to the others.

The rest of the contestants (1) Huan from Party Cinta managed to gather 3,583 votes. (2) Mohd Nabi, the independent managed to receive 799 votes and (3) Abu Backer another independent managed to receive 225 votes. All of them could not even gather 1/8% of the total votes. All their deposits given to secure a place to contest were confiscated by the Election Commission.

The turnout of voters was surprisingly low, only about 56.4 %. The Election Commission expected a 70% turnout. Those who turnout were mainly from the older generation whereas those who failed to turnout were from the young generation. According to the Election Commission, it was estimated that 37% of the total 82,431 registered voters between 21 years and 39 years had not voted.

This is rather surprising. At campaigning sessions we observed scores of youngsters rather than the elders were around listening to the speakers but they absented themselves on the day of voting. What could have been the cause? This low turnout phenomenon needs to be looked into seriously. Just to dismiss this matter believing they took it easy because they had already known who the winner was may not be entirely right.    

Dr. Chan