2005 Pengkalan Pasir by-election

The Pengkalan Pasir by-election was held on 6 December 2005 in the Pengkalan Pasir state assembly constituency of the PAS-governed state of Kelantan, Malaysia. Nominations were held on 27 November 2005, and the election was contested by Hanifa Ahmad of Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), Hanafi Mamat of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) in the Barisan Nasional (BN) 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 31 October because of cancer.^[1][2] Wan Abdul Aziz defeated Hanafi by 55 votes in the 2004 general election. In 2005, there are 18,411 eligible voters and 195 registered postal voters; 94.8% Malay and 5.2% Chinese in Pengkalan Pasir.^[3]

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 buses 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.^[4][5]

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 elections, 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 13 November, 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 1 December to pave the way for snap elections. Deputy Prime Minister, Najib 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 (PKR) 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, 27 November. 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 candidate at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 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 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.^[6]

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.^[7]

Election results

Kelantan state by-election, 6 December 2005: Pengkalan Pasir
The by-election was called due to the death of incumbent, Wan Abdul Aziz Wan Jaafar.

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	∆%
	BN	Hanafi Mamat	7,422	49.07	0.73
	PAS	Hanifa Ahmad	7,288	48.19	2.01
	Independent	Ibrahim Ali	415	2.74	N/A
Total valid votes			15,125	100.00
Total rejected ballots			325
Unreturned ballots			0
Turnout			15,450	73.00
Registered electors			18,411
Majority			134	0.88
	BN gain from PAS		Swing		?

References

Notes

• v
• t
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By-elections in Malaysia

Federal

1950s	Kedah Tengah 1959
1960s	Kampar 1960 Telok Anson 1961 Kuala Trengganu Selatan 1962 Lipis 1962 Muar Selatan 1963 Bachok 1964 Seberang Selatan 1964 Krian Laut 1966 Bruas 1966 Kelantan Hilir 1967 Raub 1967 Pasir Mas Hulu 1967 Segamat Utara 1968 Kuantan 1968
1970s	Malacca Selatan 1971 Kapar 1971 Bau-Lundu 1971 Lipis 1972 Ulu Selangor 1972 Rembau-Tampin 1972 Kuala Kedah 1973 Johore Timor 1973 Rajang 1974 Selayang 1975 Pekan 1976 Kemaman 1976 Kimanis 1977 Panti 1977 Keningau 1977 Pontian 1978 Pelabuhan Kelang 1979
1980s	Mukah 1980 Kimanis 1981 Paloh 1981 Sri Gading 1981 Ulu Muda 1983 Tampin 1983 Seremban 1983 Padang Terap 1985 Ulu Padas 1985 Lubok Antu 1987 Limbawang 1987 Gopeng 1987 Johor Bahru 1988 Ampang Jaya 1989 Bentong 1989
1990s	Jerai 1992 Gua Musang 1995 Bagan 1995 Lipis 1997 Telok Intan 1997 Kuala Selangor 1997 Arau 1998
2000s	Telok Kemang 2000 Pendang 2002 Gaya 2002 Permatang Pauh 2008 Kuala Terengganu 2009 Bukit Gantang 2009
2010s	Hulu Selangor 2010 Sibu 2010 Batu Sapi 2010 Bukit Gelugor 2014 Teluk Intan 2014 Rompin 2015 Permatang Pauh 2015 Kuala Kangsar 2016 Sungai Besar 2016 Port Dickson 2018 Cameron Highlands 2019 Sandakan 2019 Tanjung Piai 2019
2020s	Kimanis 2020 Padang Serai 2022 Kuala Terengganu 2023 Pulai 2023 Kemaman 2023

State

1950s	Plentong 1959
1960s	Sri Lalang 1960 Grik 1960 Kota Tengah 1960 Pontian Kechil 1961 Gemas 1962 Rantau Panjang 1962 Port Swettenham 1963 Pahang Tua 1963 Telok Datoh 1963 Balik Pulau 1963 Jelai 1964 Tumpat Tengah 1964 Jitra 1965 Ayer Itam 1965 Rahang 1965 Sungei Bahru 1966 Kampong Bharu 1967 Tampoi 1967 Chukai 1967 Baling Barat 1968 Ranau 1968 Bachok Utara 1968 Bukit Serampang 1968 Pendang 1968 Serdang 1968
1970s	Bekok 1971 Yen-Merbok 1971 Pelagus 1971 Batu Rakit 1971 Sidam 1971 Muda 1971 Tumpat Barat 1972 Sebandi 1973 Kota Bharu Tengah 1973 Elopura 1973 Johore Lama 1973 Kajang 1973 Kuala Nerus 1973 Kuching Barat 1973 Engkilili-Skrang 1974 Pasir Puteh Tengah 1974 Bandar Kangar 1974 Sungei Bahru 1974 Parit Bakar 1974 Alor Pongsu 1974 Merbok 1975 Kuala Kinabatangan 1975 Labuan 1975 Lahad Datu 1975 Lunas 1976 Semariang 1976 Kiulu 1976 Kota Kinabalu 1976 Papar 1976 Moyog 1976 Tanjong Aru 1976 Bandar Penggaram 1977 Balingian 1977 Bertam 1977 Parit Jawa 1977 Kenering 1977 Matunggong 1977 Jempol 1977 Morib 1978 Tendong 1978 Matunggong 1978 Inanam 1978 Kampong Jawa 1978 Titi Tinggi 1978 Machan 1978 Kampong Kolam 1978 Muara Tuang 1979 Kuching Timor 1979 Kuala Besut 1979 Balung 1979 Ranau 1979
1980s	Oya 1980 Bukit Raya 1980 Kemabong 1980 Sugut 1980 Pengkalan Kota 1980 Bengkoka 1981 Sebandi 1981 Matu-Daro 1981 Satok 1981 Sipitang 1981 Ulu Muar 1981 Balung 1981 Kunak 1981 Lumadan 1981 Gemencheh 1982 Tandek 1982 Usukan 1982 Kepayang 1982 Binjai 1982 Banggi 1983 Kenering 1983 Bandar Raub 1983 Tamparuli 1983 Kemumin 1983 Selising 1983 Rungkup 1983 Tambunan 1984 Bandar Maran 1986 Sukau 1986 Balung 1986 Buang Sayang 1986 Karamunting 1986 Oya 1986 Sulaman 1986 Bukit Tuku 1987 Usukan 1987 Bongawan 1987 Tanjong Puteri 1988 Parit Raja 1988 Teluk Pasu 1989 Tambatan 1989 Teruntum 1989 Sungai Besar 1989 Ranau 1989
1990s	Pantai Merdeka 1990 Kuala Linggi 1990 Kijal 1990 Sipitang 1990 Sulabayan 1990 Bayu 1991 Usukan 1991 Prai 1991 Limbongan 1991 Sungai Pinang 1991 Serkam 1991 Jerlun 1991 Bukit Payung 1992 Batu Kawah 1992 Batu Talam 1993 Kampung Raja 1993 Sementa 1994 Lundang 1994 Shahbandar Raya 1994 Sulabayan 1995 Bukit Asahan 1996 Pulai Chondong 1997 Bukit Begunan 1997 Repah 1997 Kemena 1997 Permatang 1997 Melekek 1997 Semerak 1997 Kidurong 1997 Changkat Jering 1997 Sungai Bakap 1997
2000s	Sanggang 2000 Lunas 2000 Indera Kayangan 2002 Ketari 2002 Anak Bukit 2002 Kuala Berang 2004 Ba'kelalan 2004 Pengkalan Pasir 2005 Batu Talam 2007 Machap 2007 Ijok 2007 Batang Air 2009 Bukit Selambau 2009 Penanti 2009 Manek Urai 2009 Permatang Pasir 2009 Bagan Pinang 2009
2010s	Galas 2010 Tenang 2011 Kerdau 2011 Merlimau 2011 Kuala Besut 2013 Sungai Limau 2013 Kajang 2014 Balingian 2014 Pengkalan Kubor 2014 Chempaka 2015 Tanjong Datu 2017 Sungai Kandis 2018 Balakong 2018 Seri Setia 2018 Semenyih 2019 Rantau 2019
2020s	Chini 2020 Slim 2020 Bugaya 2022 Tioman 2022 Simpang Jeram 2023 Pelangai 2023 Jepak 2023 Kuala Kubu Baharu 2024 Sungai Bakap 2024 Nenggiri 2024