Pengkalan Pasir By-election, 2005

Pengkalan Pasir By-election, 2005

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 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 buses carrying suspected phantom voters being stopped by PAS supporters on election day.