The Election Commission has set a 21-day campaign period for the Balakong state seat by-election, which has been fixed for Sept 8.

At a press conference this afternoon, deputy EC chief Othman Mahmood announced that candidates would have to file their nominations on Aug 18 at the Hulu Langat District Office.

“For postal voting locally and abroad, applications will be open on July 30 (today) and close on Aug 18,” Othman added.

Early voting, meanwhile, will be held on Aug 4.

The 21 days from Aug 18 until 11.59pm on Sept 7 is one of the longest campaign periods set for a general election or a by-election so far.

It is also in accordance with one of electoral reform group Bersih's long-time demands.

Prior to GE14, Deputy Prime Minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, as then-Permatang Pauh MP, had called on the EC to set the campaigning period at no less than 21 days from nomination day.

Based on records, the campaigning period for the 1959, 1964 and 1969 elections were 35 days.

Since then, the period has been reduced to nine days in 1999, and only eight days in 2004, the shortest period in Malaysian general elections history.

Subsequently, the EC had set 13 days of campaigning for GE12 in 2008, and 15 for GE13 in 2013.

'Further improvements by EC'

Aside from a longer campaign period, Othman said the EC will introduce further improvements to the voting process, following the measures it had implemented in the upcoming Sungai Kandis by-election.

"A new improvement to be implemented during the Balakong by-election will be to add another ballot box at each stream, from the current two boxes to three ballot boxes.

"This improvement is intended to speed up the voting process at each stream," Othman said, adding that the voting time has also been extended to 5.30pm.

Compared to GE14, Othman said the EC will provide two additional voting streams for voters aged above 60, and increasing the total number of voting streams from 100 to 129.

He also noted that the EC has invited OKU Sentral, an NGO representing people with disabilities, as an election observer.

The deadline for other interested parties to submit their applications to be election observers will be on Aug 6, he added.

The Balakong seat fell vacant following the death of PKR incumbent Eddie Ng Thien Chee in a car accident on July 20.

This will be the second by-election following the May 9 polls.

In GE14, Ng defeated BN's Lim Chin Wah and Mohamad Ibrahim Ghazali by a majority of 35,538 votes.