MUKAH: Polling began at 8am this morning at 21 polling centres in Balingian constituency following 12 days of active campaigning.
Of the 21 polling centres, centres in Kuala Kenyana and Rumah Kumbong will close at 2pm, while six others will end at 3pm. Nine other centres will close at 4pm and the remaining four at 5pm.
The by-election is a straight fight between Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate Yussibnosh Balo and PKR candidate Abdul Jalil Bujang.
A total of 13,366 voters are eligible to cast their votes.
The Election Commission expects to announce the results of the Balingian by-election before 9pm today.
Chairman Abdul Aziz Yusof said the result would be known earlier if all counting processes were smooth.
“But we can expect the result to be announced before 9pm tomorrow (today),” Abdul Aziz told reporters here yesterday.
He also said that the results of the postal votes would be known by 5pm and that the outcome of the March 25 early voting by 4 pm.
He advised voters to come out early and vote due to the weather.
“As the state meteorological department forecasted cloudy weather condition from 11am to 2pm tomorrow (today), I would like to advise voters in Balingian to cast their votes early. This will also prevent voters coming late,” he said.
Abdul Aziz is expecting a high voter turn-out rate of at least 80% or 10,586. This is based on the fact that Balingian has a good network of roads and the people seemed eager to exercise their rights.
On the issue of security, Abdul Aziz assured that the counting centre, which is the Mukah Civic Centre, would have a spare generator in case there was a blackout in Mukah town during the counting time.
“We have a backup generator set, but we have also been assured by Sarawak Energy that it would look after the power supply,” he said.
He warned both political parties and their supporters not to campaign during voting time as campaigning time ended at the stroke of midnight yesterday.
328 EC personnel on duty
He said EC personnel would be monitoring all the 21 polling stations closely to prevent political workers, supporters and voters from harassing other voters.
“I would like to advice voters to exercise their freedom to choose their own candidate with peace of mind.”
Meanwhile, state EC director Takun Sunggah told The Borneo Post that most of the ballot boxes was transported to different polling stations early yesterday, except for the ballot box for Kuala Kenyana, which was sent to the polling station at 4pm.
He said, a total of 328 EC personnel were involved in the by-election, but only 233 were directly involved as proceeding officers and polling clerks.
Takun believed both political parties would accept the result gracefully as that had been the culture of Sarawakians.
The by-election was called following the resignation of its incumbent Taib Mahmud on Feb 28 to pave the way for his appointment as Sarawak Governor on March 1.
In the last state election in April 2011, Taib, who was then chief minister, won the seat with a majority of 5,154 votes against Suriati Abdullah of PKR (who garnered 871 votes) and an Independent candidate Salleh Jafaruddin (who garnered 1,056 votes).
