JOHOR BARU (May 5): DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang has triumphed in the battle of Gelang Patah by a majority of more than 14,500 votes after a hard-fought battle for the largely urban Chinese constituency.

Lim defeated four-term Johor menteri besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman, who stood in the parliamentary constituency which was previously MCA's seat.

Lim secured 54,284 votes while Ghani won 39,522 votes, making it a 14,762-vote majority victory.

Live updates of the votes were coming through DAP's ad hoc operations centre in a hotel in Skudai. Lim is currently making his way to the Election Commission's (EC) headquarters here.

The opposition heavyweight's presence in Gelang Patah has charged up the political landscape in Johor, the bastion of Umno and MCA.

In the 2008 general election, BN's Tan Ah Eng won the seat after winning 33,630 votes against PKR's Zaliha Mustafa's 24,779 votes. The previous margin was 8,851 votes or a 15.15% margin.

Gelang Patah is the largest constituency in Johor as it has 106,864 registered voters. Chinese voters form the majority at 52.41% followed by Malays (33.65%), Indians (12.44%) and other ethnic groups (1.51%).

According to party workers, voter turnout in Gelang Patah had surpassed the previous 77% as 93,806 registered voters cast their ballots today.

There were also 1,059 spoilt votes and 206 unreturned ballot papers.

In 2008, Gelang Patah recorded one of the highest number of spoilt votes in Johor with 2,244 unusable ballot papers, a number which is said to be above the national average of between 1% and 2%.

However, the victory was short lived as Pakatan lost the Nusa Jaya state seats under the Gelang Patah parliamentary constituency while it retained Skudai.

Johor DAP chairman Dr Boo Cheng Hau defended his Skudai state seat on a large majority than in 2008.

Boo secured 33,692 votes against BN's Liang Ah Chy, who polled 15,642 votes in the Chinese-majority state seat.

In 2008, Boo won his seat after getting 23,124 votes, double that of BN's Datuk Teo Kok Chee who only won 10,270 votes. Boo's majority then was 12,854 votes or a 38.49% margin.

Sadly for the the Nusajaya state seat, PAS vice-president Salahuddin Ayub lost to BN's Dr Zaini Abu Bakar.

Salahuddin, who was Pakatan's menteri besar designate in the event the opposition pact won over the state government, lost with only 20,965 votes compared with Zaini's 23,166 votes.

Both candidates are new to the Nusajaya seat. In 2008, BN's Datuk Abdul Aziz Sapian won the Malay-majority state seat after obtaining 16,643 votes against PAS candidate Md Shah Lamat who only garnered 9,259 votes.