TWO BY-ELECTIONS AN UPHILL TASK FOR THE BN

Suddenly we have an explosion of more politics in the country. After the fall of the opposition Perak state government, we have two by-elections. One is the Bukit Gantang parliamentary seat in Perak and another the Bukit Selambau, Kedah state seat.
The P59 Bukit Gantang seat in Perak (near Taiping) has some 55,471 registered voters. At the 2008 election the seat was won by PAS' Roslan Shaharum with a majority of 1,566 votes.
Roslan, who died of heart attack a few days ago and the reason for the by-election, polled 20,015 against Abdul Azim Mohd Zabidi of the BN-Umno 18,449 votes. Another candidate M. Morgan, an independent, polled 872 votes. Voter turnout in the seat at last year's election was 40,187 voters or 72.4% with 851 spoilt votes.
In N25 Bukit Selambau, the by-election is being held due to the resignation of V. Arumugam, initially an independent and now in Pakatan Rakyat. He beat MIC's S. Krishnan at the last general election.
The state seat has 34,977 voters. At the last election, Arumugam polled 13,225 votes against Krishnan's 10,863 votes to win with a 2,362 vote majority.Voter turnout at the last election was 25,782 votes or 73.7%.
While I hope both by-elections would be swept by the BN, I realise that the current political climate would make it an uphill battle especially with Kedah being opposition ruled while Perak has just come back to the BN in default.
It is also my feverish hope that the two by-elections would be conducted and participated in a fair and noble manner without any trouble.
The Election Commission would set the date for both the polls on Friday. Looks like February is going to be busy month with lots of travelling.
UPDATE: Both the by-elections would have its nomination on March 29 and election on April 7.