Hasan celebrates with his family after being announced as the winner of Rompin by-election last night. — Bernama photo
ROMPIN: The Barisan Nasional (BN) has retained the Rompin parliamentary seat after its candidate Datuk Hasan Arifin won in the by-election here yesterday with a majority of 8,895 votes.
Hasan, 62, obtained 23,796 votes or 61 per cent of the votes cast while his challenger, PAS’ Nazri Ahmad, 40, secured 14,901 votes or 39 per cent.
In the 13th General Election held in May 2013, Tan Sri Dr Jamaluddin Jarjis had retained the seat for the BN after defeating Dewan Muslimat PAS chief Nuridah Mohd Salleh with a majority of 15,114 votes.
Jamaluddin obtained 30,040 votes or 66.53 per cent whereas Nuridah polled 14,926 votes or 33.06 per cent.
The results were announced by the Returning Officer Datuk Fadzilla Salleh at the vote tallying centre at Dewan Jubli Perak Sultan Ahmad Shah here last night.
Fadzilla said voter turnout was 74 per cent and there were 591 spoilt votes.
There are 53,294 registered voters in the constituency.
Voter turnout this time was lower than in the 13th General Election (GE13).
GE13 saw 46,035 voters casting their votes or 85.89 per cent.
The Rompin by-election was called following the death of Jamaluddin in a helicopter crash in Semenyih, Selangor on
April 4.
Jamaluddin had held the seat for almost six terms. — Bernama