LIVE: BN's Mohd Zaidi wins Slim with thumping 10,945 majority

Pejuang keeps deposit in electoral debut

9.30pm - Dr Mahathir Mohamad's newly formed Pejuang manages to keep its deposit, but just barely.

The party won 13.69 percent of the valid votes, just above the 12.5 percent threshold to keep its deposit.

Meanwhile, independent candidate S Santharasekaran won only 1.79 percent of the votes cast thus losing his RM5,000 deposit.

9.05pm - The Election Commission officially announces BN candidate Mohd Zaidi Aziz (below) as the winner of the Slim by-election.

Zaidi wins by a 10,945 majority, far surpassing the winning margin in GE14 which was 2,183 votes.

He garners 13,060 votes while Pejuang-backed independent Amir Khusyairi Mohamad Tanusi obtains 2,115 votes. The other independent candidate S Santhasekaran manages 276 votes.

Voter turnout is 68.4 percent, the EC reports.

9pm - Umno candidate arrives at tallying centre

Flanked by Umno big guns such as ex-premier Najib Abdul Razak, party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, deputy president Mohamad Hassan, Ismail Sabri and Saarani Mohamad, Mohd Zaidi Aziz (below) arrives at Dewan Sri Tanjong to hear the official results.

UNOFFICIAL - Slim's Chinese and Indians swing to BN

8.30pm - (UNOFFICIAL) Unofficial results according to voting districts suggest that a significant number of Chinese and Indian voters who voted against BN in 2018 have reversed their decision.

This was very apparent in the Indian-majority voting district of Ladang Sungkai where Indian voters made up 83.56 percent of the electorate.

In 2018, 70.35 percent of the voters in this voting district backed the Pakatan Harapan candidate.

This time around, 68.26 percent of the voters in this voting district backed the BN man, Mohd Zaidi Aziz

Meanwhile, the results from the Sungai Slim Utara voting district suggest a similar swing by Chinese voters.

UNOFFICIAL - BN makes a clean sweep of all voting districts

8.15pm - (UNOFFICIAL) BN made a clean sweep of all 13 voting districts along with winning the postal and early vote.

This means that BN managed to obtain "turnaround" voters in six voting districts that did not support them in the 2018 elections.

It could also indicate that there is a significant swing towards BN among townsfolk across all three major races.

One of the clearest swings happened at the Sungai Slim Utara voting district where BN won only 17.85 percent of the vote in 2018.

This time around, BN bagged 61.28 percent of the vote - a massive turnaround in a Chinese-majority (60.85 percent) voting district.

UNOFFICIAL - BN gets more votes than BN-PAS combined in 2018

7.35pm - (UNOFFICIAL) BN has captured an even bigger vote share this time around than the combined votes PAS and Umno achieved in 2018.

According to the unofficial count, BN secured 84.37 percent of the vote share this time while the combined PAS and Umno vote share in 2018 was 66.9 percent.

UNOFFICIAL - BN wins the Slim by-election

7.20pm - According to the unofficial count, BN's Mohd Zaidi Aziz (below) has obtained  9,980 votes and thus garners an unsurmountable lead based on an estimated 73 percent turnout.

Based on the votes counted so far, BN has already surpassed the number of votes that it received during the 2018 elections. 

The Pejuang candidate, Amir Khusyairi, is believed to have garnered about 13.5 percent of the votes. If his vote share dips below 12.5 percent, he will lose his deposit. 

BN en route to landslide victory

7.05pm (UNOFFICIAL) According to the unofficial count, BN has garnered 5,173 votes. With an estimated 73 percent turnout, this means that BN is well past the halfway mark for the number of votes needed to win.

As for Pejuang, the unofficial count indicates that it has yet to reach the four-figure mark and has garnered only 15 percent of the total votes counted so far.

BN improves in early vote category, scores 95 percent

7.00pm - (UNOFFICIAL) According to the unofficial count of the early votes, BN has made a significant improvement garnering 95 percent from the total votes cast, up from 80 percent in 2018.

Pejuang's vote share for this category (4.37 percent) was almost similar to Harapan's in 2018.

This would suggest that some PAS supporters among the early voters had voted for the BN candidate.

EC: Wrong to prevent voters who wore shorts

6.50pm - Earlier this afternoon, Election Commission (EC) chairperson Abdul Ghani Salleh (below) said that several voters wearing shorts were wrongly prevented from entering a polling station at Sekolah Kebangsaan Aminnudin Baki.

“The ones who are not allowed to enter polling stations are the ones who wear clothes bearing the party logo or wear revealing clothing.

“However, for me, shorts pants are still okay. They are allowed to enter the polling station with short pants,” he told a press conference at the SK Aminnudin Baki polling station.

BN man surges ahead, takes 1,000 vote lead

6.45pm - As unofficial tallies come in from individual polling centres, BN's Mohd Zaidi Aziz has rapidly taken a lead of more than 1,000 votes. He has currently gotten 1,500 votes with Amir Khusyairi having bagged 389 votes so far and independent S Santhasekaran trailing at 65 votes.

Early votes counted, BN takes 241, Pejuang 11

6pm - Early votes have been counted and unofficially, BN's candidate Mohd Zaidi Aziz has received 241, while Pejuang-backed candidate Amir Khusyairi Mohamad Tanusi picked up only 11. 

Amir's team informs the media that he is waiting for the result from the main operation centre. No news from Zaidi yet. It is raining heavily here in Slim.

Polls close, counting begins

5pm - Polling has closed for the N58 Slim state seat in Perak and counting will begin shortly.

BN candidate Mohd Zaidi Aziz, who is acting Tanjung Malim Umno chief, is defending the party's stronghold seat against independent candidates Amir Khusyairi Mohamad Tanusi and S Santharasekaran.

Amir, a syariah lawyer by profession, is officially an independent but is representing former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad's new party Pejuang, which is effectively making its electoral debut.

READ MORE: Umno man favoured to win as Slim campaign draws to a close

The by-election is being held following the death of incumbent Mohd Khusairi Abdul Talib on July 15 due to heart failure.

Khusairi had held the seat for four terms since first being elected in 2004, while his predecessor, the late Junus Wahid held the seat for Umno from 1986 to 2004.

During the 14th general election, Khusairi won by 8,327 votes, defeating Bersatu's Mohd Amran Ibrahim and PAS' Muhammad Zulfadli Zainal who got 6,144 and 4,103 votes respectively.

There are 22,749 voters in this semi-rural constituency of which 75 percent of voters are Malay, followed by Indians (13 percent), Chinese (10 percent), and others (two percent).

Slim by-election facts

This is the 12th by-election since the 2018 general election and the first to be held in Perak. It's the second by-election to be called since the fall of the Pakatan Harapan government and its replacement in March by the Perikatan Nasional (PN) administration led by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.

The Chini by-election in Pahang was won by Umno/BN candidate Mohd Sharim Md Zain against independent candidates as Harapan chose not to contest the seat.

To date, Harapan has won five by-elections (Sungai Kandis, Seri Setia, Balakong, Port Dickson, Sandakan) while BN has won six (Cameron Highlands, Semenyih, Rantau, Tanjung Piai, Kimanis, Chini).

The late Slim incumbent Mohd Khusairi Abdul Talib held the seat for four terms from 2004, while his predecessor, the late Junus Wahid, who was formerly Perak state assembly speaker, held the seat for Umno from 1986 to 2004.

There are 22,749 voters in this semi-rural constituency of which 75 percent of voters are Malay, followed by Indians (13 percent), Chinese (10 percent), and others (two percent).

Reporting by Faisal Asyraf and B Nantha Kumar. Live KiniTV telecast by Syazwana Amir and Mohd Faidzal Shah. Photos by Azneal Ishak. Graphics by Azlan Zamhari and Syariman Badrulzaman. Social media updates by Ewe Linq Yenn. Coding by Lee Long Hui. Data and analysis by Martin Vengadesan and Andrew Ong.

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